Sky Sports to introduce Live Subtitles and Live Descriptive Audio Commentary
Customers of Sky’s (Sky Broadband etc.) UK TV service, specifically those who take their Sky Sports packs, may like to know that the provider will shortly introduce two new features across its Premier League coverage via Sky+, Sky Q, Sky Glass, Sky Stream and NOW (inc. those watching via Virgin Media) – Live Subtitles and Live Descriptive Audio Commentary.
Both of the new accessibility features, which are targeted at deaf people and those with hearing loss, are due to go live from 10th October 2026. As the name suggests, the new commentary service will add more in-depth visual detail to help fans follow player movement and positioning, referee signals, substitutions, crowd reactions, and other key moments as each match unfolds.
Specialist commentators experienced in working with visually impaired football supporters will also provide a more continuous, radio-style description of the match while still ensuring a shared viewing experience for all viewers.
Advertisement
Live Descriptive Audio Commentary will make its debut when Manchester United take on Tottenham Hotspur on Saturday 10th October. From then on, it will be available for one match per day in each game week (c.109 Premier League matches per season – so not all of them). Finally, Live Subtitles will be available across all front-channel Premier League matches, covering approximately 210 games each season.
Customers can enable Audio Description using voice control, through Settings > Accessibility, or through the on-screen options menu. Customers can enable Live Subtitles through the options menu or accessibility settings.
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
« End of the line as UK ISP Aquiss switch off final FTTC broadband service
Advertisement
Leave a Reply
Privacy Notice: Please note that news comments are anonymous, which means that we do NOT require you to enter any real personal details to post a message and display names can be almost anything you like (provided they do not contain offensive language or impersonate a real person's legal name). By clicking to submit a post you agree to storing your entries for comment content, display name, IP and email in our database, for as long as the post remains live.
Only the submitted name and comment will be displayed in public, while the rest will be kept private (we will never share this outside of ISPreview, regardless of whether the data is real or fake). This comment system uses submitted IP, email and website address data to spot abuse and spammers. All data is transferred via an encrypted (https secure) session.
This is a really frustrating announcement for Sky to make given their Glass and Stream platforms still don’t have subtitles fit for purpose after almost 4 years. To this day they are still prone to falling out of sync randomly, and will frequently disappear if any timeshifting is done. They still creep to the centre of the screen, and most of the standard subtitling features aren’t supported so programmes with working subtitle tracks on Freesat/Q/Freeview won’t display on Glass/Stream either. Numerous other bugs as well… for an entire year they weren’t displaying the third line of any subtitle track…
None of this is fixed in the new Sky OS either.