TV Subtitles

Ursabella

Hello, I have hearing difficulties and find it so hard to understand the speech on my TV when there are no subtitles. Is there anything I can do to address this problem?
I have set my smart TV to show all subtitled programmes, but there are still some channels which do not provide them.
Thank you in advance.
Ursabella ?

Geoark

Hi @Ursabella

I don't think there is a quick fix for programs or channels without subtitles. There are some options that may or may not be suitable for you.

If you have a hearing aid with a loop or 'T' setting there are a number of options available from portable loops to silent headphones. The latter do not produce sound but have an inductive output which the hearing aid can pick up.

If you can hear better with headphones on but don't want to be stuck with wires a Bluetooth dongle plugged into the tv used with a Bluetooth headphones may work well for you. I use sound cancelling wireless headphones. When the sound cancelling is turned on I found I can hear people talking a lot better. Not great as the reason I got them was to cut the background chatter at work so I could concentrate.

I can appreciate that you may not want to be sat in front of the tv for a long time with headphones on, but you can use them only when there is something you want to watch without subtitles.

Hope this helps

Adrian_Scope

Hi @Ursabella, unfortunately as Geoark said, there's no easy fixes in terms of addressing the subtitling issue. Ofcom have been enforcing targets for the subtitling of content in recent years, but most channels actually exceed their targets at the moment. Hopefully some of Geoark's suggestions will be of use to you though!

JenCo

Is there any way to petition certain channels who don't provide subtitles?

Chloe_Scope

Hi @JenCo, you are able to create a petition at Change.org or UK Parliament petitions. I hope this is useful.