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TV Subtitling Explained – Interview With RTE

RTE, Ireland’s national TV broadcaster, aims to subtitle all its shows by 2014, with the help of digital tools. For now, here’s an outline of the work involved, as discovered by Miriam Walsh, IDK’s journalist intern.

It may be hard to believe – but subtitles don’t just magically pop up on TV screens as soon as 888 is pressed on the remote. Meeting with Anne Barry, who adds subtitles to RTE shows, I learned how one half-hour TV show can sometimes take over half a day to add subtitles to.

Learning about the process and the different kinds of subtitling, I got an insight into how the team determines which shows are subtitled and which are not. Working backward through the day, RTE’s main focus is on prime time TV, which airs from 6pm until 12am at night. At this time shows such as RTE News and Weather, Home and Away and CSI are all subtitled.

For children, some early evening TV shows including Kazoo have subtitles, as does morning show Balamory. Because the process is so costly, Anne and the small team of four must ask if it is worth their time and the expense of subtitling shows such as Arthur, which appears at 6.45 in the morning.

The questions they have to ask are, will kids be up at that hour? And will those kids be of reading age? There is little point providing subtitles for a sleeping audience or those too young to read them.

Sometimes it is not possible to get subtitles for a TV show and there is little that RTE can do about this. They do however try to buy in shows that have subtitles or shows that can be subtitled over those which cannot. The Big Big movie on a Saturday night is always given priority, as are movies shown during school holidays and mid-term breaks.

The summer is a slower period for RTE with more reruns being shown for adults. This gives the team more time and money to spend on children’s TV shows and so priority is given to these at this time.

In terms of the subtitling of childrens’ TV shows, Anne thinks RTE has done as much as they can to make this possible. With connections in Disney, Anne stresses that she is always searching for subtitled shows. RTE’s new childrens’ shows include Dex Hamilton, which will be shown from October.

It is RTE’s aim to have 100% of TV shows subtitled by 2014. Anne believes this process will be easier in future when the system is digitised. RTE’s online TV player currently does not support subtitles, but will do in future.

Oct 1, 2009Team Sound Advice

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Learning Language Is Fun! - December 5th, 2009Tutorial Captioning Benefits Deaf Students' Access
Comments: 5
  1. Maggie Owens
    12 years ago

    It is great that there is a huge improvement to the subtitles service in RTE.One of the questions asked was “Will those kids be of reading age? And that there was a suggestion that there is little point providing subtitles for a sleeping audience or those too young to read them. I am a new mother of a 9 months old baby. I am deaf as well. My baby loves ‘Balamory’. How could I communicate with my baby about what is happening on balamory if I dont understand what is been said on the television. RTE please don’t forget about the deaf parents. We need to be aware of story lines on different programmes and reinforce them to help our children learn.

    ReplyCancel
  2. Maggie Owens
    12 years ago

    Its very important to keep subtitles on children’s programmes for deaf parents as well.

    ReplyCancel
  3. Caroline
    12 years ago

    Hi Maggie,

    Well done for making these very valid points on RTE’s subtitling of childrens’ TV programmes. We’ve posted this link to IDK’s Facebook group, so check for other readers’ views on the same issue. RTE’s annual conference for deaf/hoh TV viewers is next month, so your points will be raised on the day, with any other points we receive before then.

    Keep in touch,
    Caroline

    ReplyCancel
  4. Emma
    12 years ago

    As a deaf parent of hearing children it is hard for me to follow programmes on RTE for children. I don’t see how hard it can be to put subtitles on programmes however complex the process is – after all we have to pay the license fee ourselves so we should get our money’s worth. I’d watch RTE childrens shows more if they put subtitles on – other channels already have them subtitled.

    ReplyCancel
  5. caroline
    12 years ago

    Hi Emma,

    Great to get your comments: what’s coming through here, is that the deaf parents of deaf and hearing children can’t always enjoy TV shows with their kids if subtitles aren’t provided. Basically, the parents may not know enough about the show to be able to follow it. The kids may have more details about a show than the parents, but as Maggie says, the learning can’t be shared because the deaf parent is disadvantaged in accessing the show’s dialogue. This is definitely a point to raise with RTE. If you’ve more thoughts on this topic before Sept 15th, just add them here, or to our Facebook posts.

    ReplyCancel

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13 years ago 6 Comments Hearingadults, audience, captions, children, deaf, digital, hearing, Ireland, irish, kid, kids, prime, programme, show, subtitle, subtitles, subtitling, television, time, tools, TV633
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