Subtitles to Save the World 2

We revisited subtitle data for a second year to look at how often climate change is mentioned in our TV Shows

When albert released its first subtitle report in 2019 it found that terms such as cats, cake and picnic had far more mentions than climate change – so how have our channels fared since then?

In this follow up report albert has once again taken subtitling data from British broadcasters (BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5 and Sky) and interrogated it for coverage of key environmental sustainability themes within a year’s worth of programming, excluding news programmes.

Has the industry improved in its representation of themes around climate change and the environment?

Read the full subtitle report

Mentions of 'Plane' per k/episodes

43,945

Mentions of 'Beef' per k/episodes

21,307

Mentions of 'Climate Change' per k/episodes

13,613

How do climate change terms fare against high carbon activities?

Mentions of 'Plane' per k/episodes

43,945

Mentions of 'Beef' per k/episodes

21,307

Mentions of 'Climate Change' per k/episodes

13,613

This report calls upon creatives to do something bold and to do it very quickly. It has taken decades to find on-screen smoking strange, sexism affronting and no seatbelts insane. But we don’t have decades. We have to react right now to take the high carbon lifestyles out of our scripts and consider a new, aspirational approach to our storylines instead."

— Krishnendu Majumdar, Chair of BAFTA

Downloads

Download the press release and full report