Channel 4 subtitles return after the fire has stopped

Channel 4 said subtitles will be restored to different platforms and high-profile programs after weeks of hiatus.

He said “intense engineering work” means real-time text descriptions will start coming back for viewers on Sky, Virgin Media and Freeview.

The Great British Bake Off and The Last Leg will initially get subtitles.

Charities for the deaf had called for urgent action after a fire at a broadcast center hit broadcasts.

The broadcast control body Ofcom said it had received about 500 complaints about the discontinuation of Channel 4, which cut subtitles, audio description and sign language services.

Channel 4 said viewers on Freesat would still not be able to access subtitles, as it distributes content on that platform “in a different way that is not solved by this change”.

Viewers of its website and All 4 on-demand service should now start seeing subtitles on flagship programs after switching to a backup system, the channel said.

Hundreds of hours of Channel 4 programming were affected by the outage, which began when fire protection devices destroyed hard drives at a West London broadcast center on 25 September.

The incident in the center, owned by Red Bee Media, affected other broadcasters such as the BBC and Channel 5, although their services have been restored earlier.

Hearing loss charity RNID warned this week that “12 million people in the UK who are deaf or have a hearing loss have felt excluded and increasingly angry, because the system to provide closed captions and signed content is broken. “

On Friday, the National Deaf Children’s Society said it wrote to Ofcom “asking them to intervene to resolve this totally unacceptable delay.”

Channel 4 claimed to have worked with RNID to keep deaf viewers updated.

Despite switching to a backup system, Channel 4 said the audio description and sign language services “will remain unavailable until we switch to the new system which is under construction and testing.”

In addition to problems with accessibility services, other problems have plagued the Channel 4 network since the September 25 incident.

The wrong episode of the reality show Married at First Sight UK was mistakenly aired at E4, sparking criticism from loyal fans who expected to see the series finale.