LATEST UPDATE: Tuesday 2 November

We are pleased to report our Linear services on Channel 5, 5Star, 5Select, 5USA and Paramount Network are back to normal.

However, we are still working to improve the delivery of access services for VOD programming, including working through the backlog of missing subtitles and audio descriptions from the initial break in delivery.

Our operations teams are continuing to work tirelessly to ensure the full resumption of all of our services as quickly as possible.

We’d like to thank all our viewers for their continued patience.

UPDATE: Wednesday 13 October

We are sorry that viewers who rely on subtitles and audio description have experienced an inconsistent service following an incident on 25 September at the premises of our broadcast partner, Red Bee Media.

Subtitled and audio-described programming on Channel 5 is almost back to normal. Nearly all Channel 5 programmes are now being broadcast with accessibility features, particularly during our peak evening schedule.

On My5, most new programmes added are also appearing with accessibility features. We are continuing to manually add subtitles and audio description to a section of on-demand programmes which were added to My5 after the incident on 25 September. This is a slower process than we would like so please bear with us while we work through that selection of programmes. 

Thank you for your patience during this time – please be assured that we are doing all we can to fully return to a normal service. We also continue to work closely with Red Bee Media to bring our accessibility services back to full strength.

UPDATE: Friday 11 October

We are sorry for the ongoing disruption to viewers who rely on accessibility features to watch our programmes. Channel 5 takes this issue seriously and we remain in close contact with Red Bee Media which is working to restore accessibility services for broadcasters following an incident at their premises.

While work is underway at Red Bee Media to fully restore services, we at Channel 5 are manually adding accessibility features to a selection of programmes on our linear channels, including viewer favourites like All Creatures Great and Small. We recognize that we won’t cover as many of our programmes as we would like but we will carry on with this work until we can revert to a normal service.  

Viewers who have missed out on programmes since the incident at Red Bee on 25 September will be able to catch up on My5. Again, we are adding accessibility features to programmes on My5 manually and will republish updated programmes on a rolling basis.

 We appreciate our viewers’ patience and understanding at this time. Please bear with us while we work with Red Bee Media to bring access services back to full strength.

UPDATE: Tuesday 5 October

We can only apologise for the lack of subtitles & audio description to the Channel 5 service.

The continued disruption comes as a result of an incident that occurred on Saturday 25th September at one of our broadcast partner’s premises. Unfortunately, we are continuing to experience interruption to some of our services.

We're afraid our broadcast partners have lost access to all the storage that holds the media that they need to use to create our Subtitles and Audio Description, this also extends to adding subtitles live.

Because the process to fix the situation is entirely manual, it is causing delays with the creation and delivery of subtitles to the Playout suite. That said, we have been able to get subtitles & audio description sorted for some of our programming and are gradually getting back on course.

We're continuing to work closely with our partner’s engineers to get the technical issue fixed ASAP and appreciate our viewers' patience and understanding while we resolve this situation. We are also liaising with Ofcom and keeping them updated with progress.

Whilst our main focus is getting services fully operational at present, please rest assured that we are looking to add subtitles and audio description wherever possible to content that has been added to the My5 platform without them since this issue began.