Ericsson wins caption contracts with ABC and SBS

Ericsson has signed multi-year access services contracts with Australian public service broadcasters, ABC and SBS. Ericsson has signed a new contract with the ABC to deliver live and file based captioning across its television network of ABC, ABC2, ABC3 and ABC News 24.

Ericsson and SBS are also continuing their partnership with the extension of a captioning contract for an additional three years. Ericsson will continue to provide both live and file based captions for SBS TV.

Noel Leslie, SBS Chief Technology Officer, says: “Our commitment to servicing diverse multicultural communities is at the heart of SBS and this captioning agreement allows us to use the best available technology innovations to ensure all Australians can access SBS television.”

In November, Ericsson announced a multi-year news captioning contract with ANC, Australia’s leading 24-hour multi-channel, multi-platform news service provider. As part of the contract, Ericsson provides captioning services for SKY NEWS-produced bulletins on Qantas flights.

Ericsson’s closed captioning business is one of the largest in the world, with hubs in Australia, the UK, France, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands and the US. Ericsson has been providing captioning services for over 30 years and delivers over 230,000 hours of captions every year, more than 100,000 of which are live. It is also the world’s largest provider of TV audio description and sign-language translation.

Ericsson’s realtime platform supports live captioning in various languages for broadcasters around the world by using speech-to-text, newsroom integration and rapid offline content preparation.