Some light at the end of the tunnel for frustrated Channel 4 viewers

Some good news today for those who use the subtitles service on Channel 4 – with the broadcaster announcing it will be restored to high-profile programmes after weeks of disruption.

The Great British Bake Off and The Last Leg – as well as live television including Channel 4 News and F1 racing – will gain subtitles initially, with the service starting to reappear for viewers on Sky, Virgin Media and Freeview. The outage started after fire-suppression devices destroyed hard disks at a west London broadcasting centre at the end of September. The issues have affected a number of channels, including BBC output and Channel 5, but this particular issue at Channel 4 – which has also affected audio description and sign-language services – has been one of the longest lasting.

Freesat viewers are still out of luck until Channel 4 finishes testing a new system, and the same goes for audio description and sign-language services. So it isn’t all good news, but at least things are moving in the right direction.

Ofcom, the broadcasting watchdog, said it had received hundreds of complaints about the disruption, and charities for the deaf had quite rightly called on the regulator to do what it could to see services returned swiftly. Access for everyone to enjoy services like Channel 4 is extremely important – and while I don’t doubt that Channel 4 has been doing what it can, it is an awful shame that it is taking so long to return service to normal levels.

Earlier this week, Channel 4 apologised for the issue, saying it realised it was “incredibly frustrating” for viewers and that engineers were working “around the clock” to resume normal service – as it suggested services would be out of action until mid-November. The latest update comes after what the channel calls “intensive engineering work”.

We have had a number of letters about the outage, some of which have expressed frustration, and I would be interested to hear the thoughts of readers.

Yours,

Chris Stevenson

Voices editor