15 October 2021

Ofcom update on Channel 4 access services

We have held meetings with Channel 4 and Channel 5 to address the lack of subtitling, signing and audio description, which has caused deep upset and frustration among audience members with sight and hearing impairments. Ofcom received around 500 complaints about Channel 4's ongoing outage. Channel 4 has assured us it will shortly communicate to its audience the clear measures it is taking to restore these services. Channel 5 has now restored these services to its forward schedule, and is adding them back to recent on-demand programmes where they are lacking. We welcome this progress, and will continue to engage with the broadcasters to make sure these services are restored as a priority.

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