Five Things You Can't Do On British Television

Pull down this description for information on all the shows I mention, plus all my references, and some advice if you're looking to subtitle your videos!

🔤🔤 SUBTITLES 🔤🔤

15% of my viewers watch with subtitles! They're helpful for folks without headphones, or in loud environments, or who can't hear well, or who just like subtitles. More people will watch if subtitles are an option.

Before 2020, YouTube had a volunteer community-captions system. Alas, due to spam (and, I suspect, the difficulty of porting it to the new Studio), YouTube turned it off. So your options are:

OPTION 1: DO IT YOURSELF

OPTION 2: PAY A SMALL AMOUNT

If you can afford an editor, you can afford subtitles! They only cost $1-2 per minute of audio.

Advantages of Rev:
✅ Extremely fast turnaround
✅ Easy, simple, automated, self-service
✅ Reasonable price

Disadvantages of Rev:
🚫 Accuracy is usually acceptable for clear speech, but not the near-perfect results you'd expect from a more high-end subtitle company.
🚫 They're limited to their simple, narrow, house style. That isn't ideal for videos with long sentences or many speakers.

Advantages of Caption+:
✅ Exceptional subtitle accuracy.
✅ Hand-tweaked broadcast-standard subtitles that are perfect for accessibility, and which the audience love.
✅ Can use positioning and per-speaker colors, and match other style requests.
✅ Still a reasonable price.

Disadvantages of Caption+:
🚫 Not automated: you're dealing with a human by email, and paying invoices.

📺📺 SHOWS 📺📺

Here's a list of all the shows mentioned, with links where available. (Where Amazon links are listed, those are affiliate links, where I earn a commission from sales.)

📙📙 REFERENCES 📙📙

Ghostwatch, and the "full tabloid fury afterwards", is well-documented in many places, so I'll leave researching that to the reader. Don't have nightmares.

📝📝 CONTACT 📝📝

and on Instagram as tomscottgo

[VixVixious]

I was expecting something silly like “you can’t show the Queen from the back on Tuesdays”, but these all seem very reasonable

[TransfemToast]

"Oh look at me, I have a Lamborghini
BUY SOME DAMN SUBTITLES"
Jeremy Clarkson: time for a break
YouTube: AD PLAYS

Tom Scott 2020

[GreatFox]

As an American I envy that 12 minutes of advertisement per hour rule so damn much. We're lucky to have 12 minutes of _show_ per _half_ hour. It's gotten so bad that re-airings of older episodes of different shows have had parts of them completely cut out (with no effort spared to smooth the transition), not because of censorship, not because of offense, but just to squeeze in more frickin' ads.

[van-hieuvo]

I've always respected Tom for including subtitles. I'm not hearing-impaired, but there are occasions where I can't watch with sound on, and Tom's reliability is very much appreciated.

[TotallyNotCalledEvan]

"You are not allowed to disrupt a show with an ad."

"Oh no"

[Ad break]

"Anyway"

[victorycry]

Tom: "This should apply to YouTube as well."
YouTube: *Removes community captioning.*

[superhappypenguin]

THANK YOU!!! As someone who watches subtitles because they don’t have headphones, I am so happy with channels who use actual subtitles and not just the “auto generated” ones that never quite say what they are supposed to.

[SingingWithMyself-Frozen]

I remember watching American shows on British TV (usually kids shows but not always) and noticing moments when characters would repeat something they'd just said, or there would be a weird transition in the middle of a scene. I now realise that these were where the extra ad breaks you're allowed in the US would go.

[bnknsy]

Bravo for posting your mid roll ad right when Clarkson says “Time for a break” 😂

[h-]

"Oh, look at me, I bought a lamborghini-"
"BUY some damn subtitles! Also-"
*Cutscreen*

That cracked me up

[itsthemaggieshow]

Can we just appreciate that Tom got and read a whole hypnosis textbook just to make one small point? I mean, that’s dedication.

[sameermohideen]

“Oh look at me, I bought a lamborghini”
“BUY SOME DAMN SUBTITLES”
~Tom, 2020

[unofedeo]

I love the sudden cut to

“Ooh look at me I bought a Lamborghini - Buy Some Damn Subtitles!”

[anthonygillette]

As someone who isn’t actually deaf, I have a hard time hearing and understanding voices. Even in real life it can be hard, so subtitles are a big deal. User created subtitles being removed from YouTube has made life hard

[hernanpk]

Im not a native english speaker, and I'm always thankful for those who puts subtitles in their videos, because it's so much easier to understand what they are saying, since most of the time I can't clearly figure out what's the idea because of the accent, slangs, etc. So again, thank you very much for doing and promote it. This channel fascinates me

[MadSideburns]

Jeremy Clarkson: "time for a break"
*Youtube ad starts immediately*

I'm not complaining this time

[Hyblup]

That “time for a break” straight to an ad cut is just _brilliant_

[imdoneplus]

As a person with a disabled partner it’s of paramount importance that subtitles are available. If you had trouble understanding people’s verbal speaking you wouldn’t be able to enjoy telly without subtitles and it’s important to remember that.

[Mega-Brick]

On the topic of ads in the US, even little kids' shows are prone to it. One time, it played the credits of the end of an episode, then cut to commercial. Then it came back from commercial to play the intro theme of the next episode, and then went back to commercial.

[FireCraftEntertainment]

7:45 " And the host says: *Time for a break* "
(YouTube Ad Starts)

Tom proved his point breaking the 3.5th Wall