This week marks yet another week that Channel 4 continues to experience technical problems affecting its subtitling, signing, and audio description services, leaving d/Deaf and blind viewers frustrated and disconnected.
Following an outage incident on the 25th of September, the system providing access services failed, and now those with access needs are approaching a month since they were last able to watch any programmes on the channel.
After receiving over 500 complaints, Ofcom, the communications regulator, held meetings with both Channel 4 and Channel 5 (which was also affected) to address the problem and communicate the frustration of d/Deaf and blind viewers. Channel 4 then issued a statement assuring its audience the matter was a “top priority”, and its engineers have been working “around the clock”. The outage also affected Channel 5’s services, however, they were able to confirm last week that subtitled and audio-described programming were almost back to normal, with some access features for on-demand viewing via My5 taking slightly longer to appear, due to them being manually added.
The situation was even raised by Adam Hills, host of the late-night comedy show The Last Leg, during an episode where he held up a sign with the message “Sorry there’s still no subtitles”, and then a second one directed at those at Channel 4, reading “Sort it out”. One viewer quipped that this was “the only accessible bit of C4 for the last two weeks”.
Although the issue is now starting to (slowly) be resolved, many viewers requiring accessible services feel the problem has not been taken as seriously as it should have been, with one commenting that if the issue was with the sound, “the reaction would be totally different”. Another added that as a result of over 3 weeks without subtitled or audio described programming, viewers have had to avoid spoilers and even fan bases for their favourite shows, meaning not only have they missed out on these programmes, but they have also been isolated from wider communities.
Many feel that the lack of speed with which the issues have been addressed, let alone rectified, are symptomatic of how accessible services, and therefore the disabled, blind, and d/Deaf communities, are not prioritised, or given equal priority to other audiences. Not only is it discriminatory, but it also lends itself to the exclusion of such communities, which already face daily challenges regarding isolation from wider society, impacting individuals' mental and emotional well-being.
As the services begin to resume, Ofcom also announced that channels that do not fulfill access requirements could be subject to regulatory powers, for example, major fines.
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