Swedish Television improves public news accessibility with AI

SVERIGES Television AB (SVT) is the Swedish national public television broadcaster. They reach over 10 million residents in 21 regions. SVT’s purpose is to serve residents news and information to improve their lives. 

Finding an accessible solution for viewers 

To accomplish this goal, SVT took actions to increase accessibility. This includes people with hearing disabilities. In addition, 20 percent of the people in Sweden speak other native languages. With so much content, using a non-automated transcription process is time consuming and costly. SVT partnered with Microsoft to develop a solution that could provide high-quality, accurate automated captions.

Improving business operations and impact

Since production launch in 2021, SVT has been able to reach more customers and save time and resources. Captioning has helped thousands of people to get the support needed to fully experience SVT content. 

“Without a fully automated solution we simply could not provide closed captioning for local news shows, since we are publishing content for 21 stations simultaneously several times daily,” says Anna Zettersten, Head of Department SVT Languages & Access Services. "The feedback from the target groups are mostly very positive—they are grateful and happy for the opportunity to take part in the content through automated subtitling.”

More AI for accessibility 

Moving forward, SVT will continue using live captioning to improve customer reach and inclusion. Visit the AI for Accessibility program to learn more about how companies are harnessing the power of AI to amplify capabilities for the millions of people around the world with a disability.