I have had an interesting discussion with BBC Worldwide and Contender Entertainment on the subject of subtitling, over the last year or so.

In the summer of 2002, BBC Worldwide, made a policy decision to subtitle all of their DVD output. However, on some occasions, releases are not subtitled, not because they don't want to, but because the master video tapes have not been sent over to them, from the BBC Production Dept.

This very frustratingly, happened with the documentary series 'Wild down Under' But amazingly, BBC Worldwide do not produce all of the DVD's of BBC programmes. As I understand it, they auction the DVD licence rights to the highest bidder, with BBC Worldwide putting in a bid themselves. If they win, you are more or less guaranteed English HOH subtitles. If another company get's the licence rights, it can be a hit or miss affair whether that company will be sympathetic to the principle of HOH subtitling.

Last year one such company, Contender got the UK DVD rights to 'Spooks'. It launched the first season on DVD, without subtitles.
I complained. I received a very nice reply from them. They said that they had found the costs of subtitling quoted to them by professional companies, to be too high. They said that it can be as high as £40,000 per subtitle stream. However, later that year BBC Worldwide itself got the US and Canada rights, and the US edition of Season One is English HOH subtitled.

I gently persuaded them to discuss sharing subtitles with the BBC. The good news here is that they succeeded, and the UK release of Season 2, released will carry an HOH English subtitle stream, as will the future releases of the series.

However, according to Media Guardian, and the BBC News website, the BBC is discussing possibly selling BBC Worldwide, to the marketplace.
I feel that it would be a great shame if this happened and the future of future BBC DVD's with subtitles was put in jeopardy.

Therefore, to ensure that the interests of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing community are not forgotten, please write to the Head Of BBC Video at

BBC Worldwide Limited
Woodlands
80 Wood Lane
London W12 0TT
UK

to let him know that, our interests should be protected.