APPENDIX 29
Supplementary memorandum submitted by
the Royal National Institute for Deaf People
RNID BRIEFING ON THE BBC AND SUBTITLING
KEY STATISTICS
ON SUBTITLING:
— one million people use subtitles
"wherever possible" to watch television;
— five million people use subtitles
regularly when watching television;
— the BBC meets the ITC's subtitling
targets voluntarily on analogue television;
— there are no subtitling regulations
on cable or satellite television at all;
— the DTT targets are to increase by
5 per cent per channel, per year. The BBC has voluntarily agreed
to double these targets at the Davies Report's recommendation,
to 10 per cent per annum (ie 50 per cent after five years rather
than 25 per cent after five years); and
— NOP data shows that 35-40 per cent
of the over 55s (half of whom have some kind of hearing loss)
are unaware of subtitles or how to access them.
1. Analogue subtitles: the BBC voluntarily
meets ITC's targets for subtitling (as does Channel 4) on analogue
terrestrial television. In this year the ITC target is 55 per
cent and next year 61 per cent. Whilst the BBC meets or exceeds
these targets so do all of the other analogue terrestrial channels.
For example Channel 4 has over 60 per cent subtitling against
the target of 55 per cent, and ITV 64 per cent against the target
of 55 per cent. As a public service broadcaster the RNID believes
that the BBC should have a policy consistently exceeding, by a
given percentage, the ITC's targets.
Recommendation: that the BBC adopts a policy
of exceeding the ITC's analogue targets by 10 per cent each year.
This would mean 65 per cent of BBC analogue programmes would be
subtitled in 1999 and 71 per cent of programmes in 2000 and so
on.
2. Digital television and subtitles: the
recent Gavyn Davies' Report recommended a doubling of subtitle
targets on BBC digital channels with the BBC subtitling 50 per
cent of programmes after five years, and 100 per cent after 10
years. The BBC has accepted these targets and the RNID very much
welcomes this.
Recommendation: RNID would wish to see a high
increase in the first three years (say to 40 per cent) in order
to make it more likely that deaf and hard of hearing viewers be
early adopters of digital television.
3. Subtitles and Flextech: the BBC has a
joint venture with Flextech and gives first refusal to Flextech
on the supply of its' television archive. These are then shown
on channels such as UK Gold, UK Living etc. Flextech have access
to all of the BBC subtitling archive, yet none of the BBC's programmes
on analogue Flextech channels are shown with subtitles. The new
digital channels are only shown with the required percentage of
subtitles to meet the terrestrial television targets.
Recommendation: given that the cost of re-editing
programmes' subtitles is much lower than for creating afresh,
we believe that within five years Flextech should be showing 75
per cent of the programmes that were shown on the BBC with subtitles,
on its own channels with subtitles. This would only apply to digital
channels as analogue cable and satellite will not exist in five
years' time.
4. Subtitles and BBC videos: while many
BBC videos are of programmes that were first shown with subtitles
very few BBC videos have "closed caption" subtitles
(which are read by special VCRs). It costs about £500 per
hour to re-subtitle a programme with closed caption subtitles.
We believe that the main supplier of closed caption subtitles
has a proprietary technology to convert TV subtitles into closed
caption ones. The RNID is meeting with this supplier shortly with
a view to finding a way for the BBC to reduce its costs in creating
subtitled videos. However, we believe at very least that the video
of any programme made with subtitles should also have subtitles.
Recommendation: 100 per cent of BBC videos should
have closed caption subtitles.
5. Promotion of subtitles: historically
the BBC has been poor at promoting subtitles. They are hard to
find on Ceefax, they are not advertised widely in the Radio Times
or other television guides, and there is usually a conspicuous
lack of promotional trailers promoting subtitling. Compare this
to the promotions for EastEnders, Radio One DJs, children's programmes,
or forthcoming series on the BBC. It should be remembered that
on average one in five licence fee paying households will have
a deaf or hard of hearing person within them. In addition people
over the age of 55 years are a disproportionally high percentage
of the BBC's audience. The BBC has, during the recent Deaf Awareness
Week, shown a Nick Hancock trailer promoting subtitles.
Recommendation: the BBC should show a promotional
trailer for subtitles 50 times a year (an average of once a week)
on either BBC1 or BBC2, preferably in prime time.
December 1999
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