Ofcom to investigate Channel 4 following subtitle issues
Ofcom has opened an investigation into Channel 4, following an extended outage last year of its subtitling, signing and audio description services.
These ‘access services’ are relied on by millions, including deaf, hard-of-hearing, blind and partially-sighted people, to watch and listen to television.
We are also today publishing our report into Channel 4’s Television Access Services in 2021 – looking at subtitling, audio description and signing on Channel 4, E4, More4, Film4, and 4seven.
Ofcom found that Channel 4 managed to meet the statutory requirement to subtitle 90 per cent of its programme hours over 2021 on most programmes. It also met its requirements for audio description and signing.
However, Channel 4 fell short of its subtitling quota on Freesat, a satellite TV platform used by around two million UK homes.
This was due to an incident at a broadcast centre run by Red Bee Media in September 2021 which caused significant disruption to several broadcasters’ operations, including their access services.
Channel 4 was the worst affected, with an extended outage on its broadcast channels that began on 25 September 2021 and was not fully resolved until 19 November 2021.
In an announcement this morning, Ofcom said it remained concerned about the Red Bee incident. It resulted in a lengthy outage to Channel 4’s access services provision and also wider disruption to its general broadcasts on all platforms. A number of other broadcasters were also affected, though to a less significant degree.
On top of investigating Channel 4, Ofcom is also reviewing the transmission arrangements and backup facilities the affected broadcasters had in place at the time of the outage, and what changes they have made or planned as a result.