Channel 4 facing Ofcom probe over subtitles outage which took two months to fully resolve
Channel 4 is to be investigated by Ofcom after an outage of its subtitle services last year, which took two months to restore.
In September 2021, a fire suppression system was triggered at broadcast centre Red Bee Media (which handles playout services) sparking major problems.
Subtitling, signing and audio descriptions were among the services affected – prompting the National Deaf Children’s Society (NDCS) to call for regulatory action to be taken.
Ofcom said Channel 4 had fallen short of its subtitling quota on Freesat (used by around two million homes) a subscription-free satellite TV service offering more than 170 TV and radio channels.
A statement from the media watchdog said: “We have found that Channel 4 managed to meet the statutory requirement to subtitle 90% of its programme hours over 2021 on most programmes. It also met its requirements for audio description and signing.
“However, Channel 4 fell short of its subtitling quota on Freesat, a satellite TV platform used by around two million UK homes.”
A large number of hard disks were severely damaged a in a variety of systems when the fire suppression system went off.
It took until November 19 for the “extended outage” of Channel 4’s broadcast channels to be fully resolved.
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Ofcom “remains very concerned” about the incident, which it said resulted in a “lengthy outage to Channel 4’s access services provision and also wider disruption to its general broadcasts on all platforms”.
It added: “So, as well as investigating Channel 4, Ofcom is undertaking a review of the transmission arrangements and back-up facilities the affected broadcasters had in place at the time of the outage, and what changes they have made or planned as a result.”
It said the broadcaster’s “access services” are relied on “by millions, including deaf, hard-of-hearing, blind and partially-sighted people, to watch and listen to television”.
The broadcasting watchdog had previously criticised Channel 4 for not having “strong back-up measures”.
A statement from Channel 4 said: “We apologise for the significant impact the Red Bee Media incident had on our access services.
“Channel 4 would like to reassure our audiences that we have thoroughly reviewed the resilience of our systems to ensure that such a catastrophic event cannot harm our ability to deliver these essential services in the future.
“Whilst we have not met our own high standards in 2021, we still delivered all of our overall statutory obligations and we are once again offering market-leading access services.”