The accessibility of media services is a part of equality - now the subtitles of the Nelonen TV channel also fulfil the quality requirements

Traficom received a review of the implementation of Nelonen's subtitling service at the end of August 2023, after ordering Sanoma Media Finland Oy to fix the inadequacies in the subtitling service by 1 August 2023.

Sanoma Media Finland Oy has changed the process of its subtitling for the deaf and hard of hearing so that all subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing produced by artificial intelligence will be checked and corrected with the help of human labour in those new programmes that the subtitling requirement applies to. Some of the most watched programmes are also subtitled completely manually and no programmes are subtitled by only using artificial intelligence anymore.

Traficom states, based on several programme samples seen, that the quality of subtitles is now at a sufficient level and the difference from before is significant. Subtitling summarises the speech and makes it more readable, and is therefore more understandable. Errors in the subtitles have been corrected and, among other things, proper names, numbers and words in foreign languages are now spelled correctly. Sentences are also separated by punctuation marks. According to Traficom, the quality of the subtitling for the deaf and hard of hearing service of the Nelonen TV channel fulfils the requirements imposed on it regarding adequate clarity and understandability. The programmes with the new subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing can be watched both on the Nelonen channel's television broadcasts and on the Ruutu streaming service.

"High enough quality subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing enables hearing-impaired persons to watch TV-programmes. In addition, elderly and people learning the language also benefit from the subtitling", Development Manager Tiina Aaltonen states.

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