Limecraft – AI Subtitling at SVT in Sweden
Key take-aways
- SVT has committed to a digital-first strategy, with 95% of content being subtitled.
- Circa 1200 named users.
- 7500 items per month adding up to 500 hours of short-form content.
- 5000 hours of manual work saved per month.
- Limecraft seamlessly integrated into the Avid production environment.
The Customer
SVT (Sveriges Television AB) is Sweden’s national public TV broadcaster, serving Sweden’s population of just over 10.6M with a mix of news and entertainment programming. SVT is funded via a public service tax on personal income that is set by Sweden’s national parliament, and the broadcaster therefore has a very strong public service remit that goes beyond profitability. SVT has a long history of adopting new technologies and SVT Play – the broadcaster’s digital video offering launched in 2006 – is the third most watched digital platform in the country after YouTube and Netflix.
The Challenge
SVT has always been keenly aware of the need to improve the accessibility and reach of its content for people with hearing/sight impairment or those unable to use audio, and the broadcaster previously committed to providing subtitles or captions for 95% of its content. As an additional benefit, subtitles also help with search engine optimization, making content easier to find. This commitment brought a very particular set of challenges, however. SVT has traditionally generated around 500 pieces of content a month, and an increasing amount of SVT’s online content is short-form which is more fast-paced and fragmented than longer-form. Unfortunately, however, the subtitling process was often very manual and time-consuming, but still required a fast turnaround.
With journalists and short-form creators increasingly having to take responsibility for subtitling, it became clear that SVT needed to find a better way to balance its accessibility commitments with workflow efficiency and costs.
