M+E Daily

The growth in localised content is hard to miss, with the media and entertainment sector busier than ever. But what do consumers think about dubbing vs. subtitling: two of the key elements that make localised content possible?

During the conference session “Subs, Dubs? What does the Consumer Think?” at the Innovation and Transformation Summit (ITS): Localisation event in London on Feb. 28, James Duvall, principal analyst, head of entertainment at Futuresource Consulting, provided insights into the views of consumers on dubbing and subtitling and how viewing habits are evolving.

We are seeing increased demand for English dubbing thanks to the popularity of international content on Netflix and other streaming services. Meanwhile, it is accurate to say that the success of any content is tied to the user experience.

“We’ve heard a lot today about different changing technologies … and the impacts that this is having on the talent pool and the different supply chain processes,” Duvall said.

“But today I’m here to talk to you about why we’re all here: for the end user, the customer, and what their experience is, [and] what do they think about the use of dubbed and subtitled content?

He went to provide some of the findings from his company’s 16th Living With Digital consumer survey, including how the consumption of dubbed and subtitled content is playing out.

The survey was nationally representative of 2,000 respondents in each country, and covered a large variety of subjects, he noted.

The latest edition of the report comes as “we’ve transitioned from a global pandemic into what some might classify as a global cost of living crisis, although obviously if you believe” the International Monetary Fund (IMF) projections, it’s “really just us here in the U.K.” that is “looking to have a downturn in economic output,” while other countries may just see a slowdown, he said.

“We’re seeing that there’s an increasing impact from inflation … across the key European markets, where we’re seeing the biggest change,” he said. That includes an impact on entertainment and media, he noted.

But he pointed out: “For those who have pay TV packages, those who digitally transact or those that have multiple subscription services, they are not necessarily seeing the same level of [a] financial pinch as the overall respondent. So good for our sector when we’ve got people engaged with content.”

However, he added: “We should be aware of a wider [percentage] of the audience base of people who are experiencing pain of not being able to pay their bills – people who are unable to afford everyday essentials. And we can see that in the U.K. and Spain. These are seeing the highest levels of people who are responding and saying that they are struggling.

Meanwhile, there are a “huge proportion of people in the last six months who are saying that they are spending less money on eating out, days or trips out, or high- end electronic devices and gadgets,” he said.

Although in-home entertainment has been impacted, the “impact isn’t as great and so this gives us, again, an opportunity,” he noted.

“Versus previous recessions, this is the first time that transactional content has really come up against a world where everybody has so many different subscription services,” he went on to say.

He moved on to explaining what the content customers look like now, dividing them into three groups: digital transactors, subscribers and consumers using Advertising-Based Video on Demand (AVOD) or Free Ad-Supported (FAST) services.

Among digital transactors, they’re “majority male” and a large “proportion of the base [falls] within that 26-45 year old, I’m going to say young professional. And we can see that there’s obviously a [lot of] people with children in their households,” he explained.

But, he said “On the opposite side, we see that the AVOD and FAST user follows a similar profile to that digital transactor but it is that group in the middle, probably the biggest, the largest group – the subscriber user, where we see this slightly teetering towards female bias. And it is also a slightly older demographic within that. Now we have to remember this is a group up to represent all the countries that we survey and there are nuances across the different survey levels when we can break that down.”

Meanwhile, we “also have to remember that subscription versus AVOD and FAST has been in the general psyche for a lot longer, and so obviously there is a more appreciation of that blending into older audiences,” he said.

Then he pivoted to respondents’ thoughts on whether they preferred dubbed or subtitled content and how important dubbing and subtitles were when watching movies or TV shows on streamed subscription services.

Digital transactors are “quite happy … to engage with content [that’s] either subtitled or dubbed,” he said. The SVOD user, however, is the one who is probably “least versatile” and doesn’t want to watch content dubbed or subtitled, he noted. Specifically, he said “we can actually see it’s either the French or the British who least want to see content either dubbed or subtitled,” while it’s the “Germans and the Italians who are the more flexible and more open to be able to kind of consume content with either dubbed or subtitled content available.”

There is also “starting to be a nuance between non-English countries and where English is the majority spoken language,” he told attendees. “We can see [that], for the U..K., U.S. and Canada … subtitled content is the preference, whereas in the other non-English speaking countries and, specifically Germany, where dubbed content is actually double the amount of consumption of subtitled [and the] people’s preference for how they want to view content.”

There are also “huge different variances when you start to look at some of the age demographics,” he said, noting of the younger audiences, “we’re seeing a lot higher percentage of people who are engaged in viewing content with subtitles.”

On social media sites including Facebook and TikTok, “we can see that there is a higher preference and amount of time spent watching subtitled content versus the average overall respondent rate,” he also said.

He went on to predict that the “use of subtitled content will be playing out a lot more depending on your need,” such as the type of screen you are using and the kind of the location you might be in. For example, he said, “if I’m on a on a train and I haven’t got my headphones with me, I’m more likely to consume the content with the subtitles on with it muted rather than the sound on [because] I don’t want to annoy those people that I’m commuting with.

The Innovation and Transformation Summit: Localisation was sponsored by AppTek, Signiant, EIDR, Iyuno, LinQ Media Group, Vubiquity, OOONA, XL8, and Collot Baca, and was produced by MESA, in association with the Content Localisation Council.