Channel 4 has admitted it may not be able to fully restore its subtitling, audio description and sign language services until November.
It follows the incident in September when a fire suppression system was triggered at Red Bee Media’s broadcast centre, which transmits all Channel 4’s services. A number of hard disks in a variety of systems were severely damaged.
In a statement, Channel 4 said that it has needed to build a completely new system to enable it to move out of disaster recovery. “We have been rebuilding the system over the last few weeks, and there is still a considerable amount of work to be done. We cannot rush this and run the risk of something going wrong.”
It added that the new system needed to be installed slowly in order to ensure its channels did not fall off the air again and to prevent a similar incident from happening in the future.
In the meantime, Channel 4 has slowly been restoring its subtitles, which were successfully run during last Friday’s Stand Up To Cancer programme.
Subtitles have also been tested on More4 and Channel 4 during the day, while there are now subtitles on popular shows Gogglebox, the Great British Bake Off and its Extra Slice – on catch up service All 4.
“We know this isn’t good enough, but it’s a start,” the broadcaster said.
Channel 4 has been the hardest hit of PSBs BBC, Channel 4 and Channel 5 following the September 25thincident.
Ofcom has also confirmed that it is investigating complaints over the failure of by the channels to provide subtitles.
Red Bee says it is getting “back on track”.
