Channel 4 ‘breached licence conditions’ over subtitles outage, Ofcom investigation concludes

Channel 4 breached the conditions of its broadcast licence when it suffered a subtitles outage last year, an investigation by the regulator Ofcom has concluded.

The broadcasting watchdog announced it would look into the incident back in January, after the channel failed to reach their access quota for Freesat last year.

The outage occurred after “fire suppression systems” were triggered at the West London base of Red Bee Media in September, causing Channel 4 to experience issues with subtitles, audio description and sign language interpretation for nearly two months.

It has since been revealed the system involved the release of “fire-suppressant gas” which caused a “loud shockwave”, damaging servers as a result.

More than 2,800 complaints were made through Channel 4’s Viewer Enquiries service about the incident, with 2,779 contact relating to subtitles and the remaining 28 relating to audio description.

The report reads: “Initially, Channel 4’s communications to viewers were imprecise and lacked sufficient information to explain what had happened, or the timescales for when viewers could expect the issues to be resolved.

“Whilst to a degree this is understandable, given that Channel 4 is likely to have also been dealing with uncertainty internally, there is still more that could have been done.”

Ofcom added that “shortcomings” by the broadcaster meant the onus was put on viewers to “keep having to look for updates” which left some people to believe the channel’s access services were “an afterthought”.

The organisation continued: “Much of the communications, particularly early on, were published in written English, only until the [Royal National Institute for Deaf people] recommended that communications should also be available in British Sign Language to make them more accessible to viewers with hearing impairments for whom BSL is their first language.

“The first information provided to viewers in BSL was published on 15 October 2021. It is unlikely that the ability to provide content in BSL through social media was impacted by the incident, therefore it appears to be an oversight on Channel 4’s behalf not to have provided this sooner.”

Channel 4 has now been ordered to tell Ofcom what steps it has taken to “ensure greater resilience of its access services” and how it is improving accessibility by the end of the year.

It’s understood the broadcaster will move to a new playout arrangement which will mean it has access to a new disaster recovery facility.

Commenting on the findings, Ofcom’s Group Director Kevin Bakhurst said: “When things go wrong, broadcasters must have plans in place to restore important services, but also to let audiences know what they can expect.

“By failing to do this, Channel 4 let down people who use subtitles, signing or audio description to enjoy programmes.

“There are a number of lessons for broadcasters to learn from this incident. We’ve told them they must improve and test their back-up plans and infrastructure to minimise the risk of such a disruptive outage happening again.”

Ofcom has also said broadcasters must “prepare effective communication plans in case of service interruptions”, adding channels should communicate with audiences on TV and “not just social media”.

📺 We have instructed Channel 4 to report to us by the end of this year on the steps it has taken to make its access services more resilient.

The broadcaster must also report on how it will continue to improve the accessibility of its broadcast and on-demand programmes. pic.twitter.com/pKK8qupj3X

— Ofcom (@Ofcom) June 20, 2022

A consultation on updating the regulator’s Television Technical Code to include these recommendations is due to take place later this year.

Channel 4 – which committed to providing 100% subtitles this year in March – said in a statement that it was “very disappointed” with Ofcom’s decision and would “review its findings carefully”.

It said: “We would like to apologise once again to our audiences for the disruption to our access services following the catastrophic incident last September and since then we have implemented a number of new systems and processes to avoid a serious incident in the future.”

The Limping Chicken has approached Red Bee Media, the Royal National Institute for Deaf people (RNID) and the National Deaf Children’s Society (NDCS) for comment.

The full report, along with a BSL summary, can be found on Ofcom’s website.

By Liam O’Dell. Liam is an award-winning Deaf freelance journalist and campaigner from Bedfordshire. He can be found talking about disability, theatre, politics and more on Twitter and on his website.

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Update – 20/06/22 – 14:45: In a statement issued to The Limping Chicken, the RNID’s Teri Devine said: Teri Devine, Associate Director for Inclusion at RNID, said: “The subtitling crisis in September 2021 which affected Channel 4 and other broadcasters left millions of viewers without access to their favourite programmes for up to eight weeks.

“Deaf viewers and viewers with hearing loss were left excluded and frustrated, and this was made worse by a lack of accessible communication explaining what had happened and when the problem would be fixed.

“RNID pushed Channel 4 throughout the crisis to provide updates to viewers to explain the timeline for fixing the problem, and to outline what programmes were available and where. We urged them to provide this information in BSL, and encouraged them to share this information on screen before programmes.

“We are pleased that Channel 4 have taken steps to prevent this crisis from happening again, and that they have since committed to subtitling 100% of content on All4 and increasing signed content.

“We welcome Ofcom’s recommendations to all broadcasters to improve their disaster recovery plans, and make sure they have plans in place to let viewers know about future issues.”

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Update – 20/06/22 – 16:30:  Jo Campion, deputy director at NDCS, added: “It’s crucial to see Ofcom stepping in and holding broadcasters to account whenever they fall short.

“Many deaf young people not only missed out on their favourite programmes, but on social opportunities with their friends and family too.

“The scarcity of information added to that ongoing frustration, leaving them feeling like they were no longer included or provided for.

“Going forward, every broadcaster must put a clear back-up plan in place, including an effective way of communicating with all of their viewers.

“By learning from these lessons, they can make sure that no deaf young person has to miss out again.”