As Peter Griffin often says 'It really grinds my gears'
As some of you know we live with and care for my Grandmother full time, she is partially deaf.
She relies on subtitles to help her enjoy programs, two years ago when first caring for her, subtitled programmes were widespread. the BBC and ITV the best, some channels because of maybe budget issues cannot afford the subtitles. The BBC incorporated subtitles into BBC iPlayer and figures show 500,000 programmes are viewed on iPlayer with subtitles switched on.
However a few of the biggies just will not admit a problem. These are channels who pride themselves on classic programmes from the past, programmes that a lot of elderly folks enjoy.
When Granny's hearing started to fail in the 90's, she has dementia as well, so a hearing aid just is not an option she chooses.

She asked me to contact TCM to thank them for the subtitles, she was happy to be able to get into an old black and white film, see the dialogue and though not as good as full hearing, it was still better than trying to guess what was going on.

Moving in with Granny in 2012, we set up a Virgin account, switched onto her favorite channel which she had missed while staying with my Mum.

TCM had no subtitles, gone. I thought it may be an issue with Virgin, TCM confirmed this via email. A standard letter that I have now got used to seeing.
Please contact your TV service provider.
On contacting them, the customer care advisor, never coming across this issue, sat and tried to problem solve and then was astounded as he realised it was not Virgin, it was the channel. Further investigation showed though Virgins On Demand channels did not have subtitles.

Its not just TCM who reply like this, it is many channels across the board who turn a deaf ear pardon the pun. BBC programs consigned to other channels, Sorry with Ronnie Corbett for example that once had subtitles are moved to Gold and have none.
Happy Days with the Fonz, Granny loved this , its just not happy days anymore if you have hearing loss.
Many services have hard to read text as do a lot of DVD's I have raised my concerns with many services Gold, Sky etc for this feels like they are discriminating.
On Demand is perhaps the jewel in many TV service providers crown, yet they do nothing to make it accessible to those with hearing loss.
Sky, the pat reply is 'Unfortunately the technology used to provide subtitles for TV broadcasts is different for On Demand downloadable content, It is not possible to transfer these over to On Demand, as different versions of subtitles have to be made, Our subtitles are played via a file directly from transmission and are not embedded onto the actual programme. We are currently investigating options to increase availability of subtitles, but we cannot confirm when this service will be available.'
This has proved to be untrue, this is standard reply back at least 4 years after a quick google.
In November 2014 this issue was raised again at The Future of Subtitling Conference, the wonderful government (not the sarcasm) have pledged to 'consider' legislation on subtitles for Video on Demand content in 2016.

Note consider! Hardly much of a hope for the millions of deaf and partially hearing public. The CEO of On Demand as admitted the ' the technical issues are entirely surmountable.'

So why are we no further on. I would love Granny to be able to see some films she lost and enjoyed and a DVD's subtitles are so poor.
So what can you do if you have hearing difficulty? Or even if you just support peoples right to access services.
Lobby your MP, a quick email, voice your complaints, concerns etc to Action on Hearing Loss https://www.actiononhearingloss.org.uk/help-items/contact-us.aspx and keep commenting on the channels and TV service providers facebook pages.

TCM must hate me now, as I often comment to say , "Nice film, my Granny would have loved it, but you chose to remove subtitles!"

Man holds his hand near his ear and listening thanks to Shutterstock

Irritated woman with remote control thanks to Shutterstock