The Current State of Captioning: A Report by 3Play Media

June 28, 2023 BY KELLY MAHONEY
Updated: July 26, 2023

 


Read the 2023 State of Captioning [Free Report]


Every year, 3Play Media conducts research on the current State of Captioning to better understand the industry landscape and future trends. The information gathered in this report is valuable because it offers a better understanding of how exactly businesses and organizations are making their digital media content accessible, and this fresh data lends itself to key insights on captioning behaviors and predictions for the future.

66% of respondents agree: media accessibility needs have moved beyond closed captioning alone.

We surveyed 317 respondents across multiple industries, including education, corporate, media & entertainment, and government. The insights from this survey help us paint a picture of how organizations implement and perceive digital accessibility services, as well as present relevant findings for content marketers, accessibility advocates, and anyone interested in media accessibility trends.

Keep scrolling for some of our most noteworthy report findings from 2023.

 

Access the 2023 State of Captioning Report
 

Top Captioning Trends from the 2023 Report

increasing bar chart trend

In the 2023 State of Captioning report, we captured data on video production and captioning behaviors, social media captioning, live and automatic video captioning, and captioning barriers and drivers.

Video production isn’t going anywhere.

 

In 2023, 23% of survey respondents report producing over 500 hours of video content annually, matching what we saw in 2022. In 2020, we saw 71% year-over-year growth in hours produced – from these numbers we know video is a vital part of content strategy, and it’s not going anywhere.


85% of respondents are captioning video.

 

Down incrementally from 88% in 2022, captioning priorities have remained steady as 85% of respondents report captioning all, most, or some of their video content. When asked how they prioritize content for captions, 42% of respondents said they simply caption everything.


Providing access is the primary motivator.

 

When asked what drove them to caption in 2023, 67% of respondents said accessibility and/or equal access. Other key drivers include legal compliance, audience requests, boosted engagement, and better learning outcomes.

In regards to social media video specifically, 68% of respondents said they caption their videos for accessibility. Other key drivers included increased views, engagement, and legal compliance.


69% of respondents are using live captions.

 

Over 70% of respondents produce up to 1,000 hours of live streamed content annually, with Zoom, YouTube, and Microsoft Teams being the most popularly used platforms.

69% of respondents said they provide live captions, either sometimes or all the time. Live captions are important to ensure more folks have access to live video content, including webinars, live streams on social media, and virtual conferences.


Auto captions are attractive, but not accessible.

 

Automatically generated captions are a good fit for organizations new to accessibility or working with a strict budget, and they’re certainly better than having no captions at all. However, it’s important to note that auto-captions are not sufficient as a stand-alone approach to captioning.

The most effective way to leverage auto-captions is in combination with human oversight, and this seems to be catching on – in 2023, more than 40% of respondents said they use auto-captions to generate a foundational transcript before passing it through human review.


 

Lean more about the trends this year in our complete 2023 State of Captioning report.

Free report: 2023 State of Captioning with link to download your copy

 

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