Subtitles on UKTV Play

by Steve Whyte, Senior Compliance Advisor at UKTV

UKTV Play

February 2020

UKTV has been entertaining the nation with award-winning TV shows for over 25 years now and as each year goes by, we work harder to ensure that as many of our viewers can enjoy those shows as possible. This means committing to adding the best accessibility updates including subtitles and audio-description wherever possible.

Almost 90% of the TV programmes on our network of channels, which includes Dave, Alibi, Drama, Yesterday, Eden, W and Gold, are available with subtitles and around 30% have audio description.

I'm pleased to share today, that we've added subtitles to our on-demand service UKTV Play. Over 80% of the shows available on-demand, that's around 2,500 episodes, are now available with subtitles.

These subtitled shows on UKTV Play are available while watching online and on mobile (iOS and Android), on Now TV, Roku, and Apple TV. Next on our list is Freeview Play, Samsung TV, YouView, Amazon Fire TV, Freesat and LG. We're hoping to add subtitles to UKTV Play on these devices later this year.

Due to technical restrictions it isn't straightforward to add subtitles onto our shows when they appear on third-party platforms (such as Sky and Virgin). We are working with our providers to find the best solution - and we are aware that there's still more work for us to do to improve accessibility via on-demand.

Please be assured that accessibility is important to us. We want everyone to be able to enjoy our great TV shows - and be able to watch when and how they want to - and we will continue to work hard to make this happen.

In the meantime, we hope this update is useful and we promise to share further updates as they happen.

If you have any questions, or for more information on how you can benefit from subtitles on your television, please:

email: viewers@uktv.co.uk
visit: https://uktvplay.co.uk/help/faqs
telephone: 020 3192 050

Finally, as experts in this field we'd welcome your feedback and suggestions on this topic. We're always open to finding out more about how we can add value to the deaf community.

Steve Whyte, UKTV