logo image
  • News
    • People Moves
    • Deal Wins
    • Demand Drivers
    • M&A and Funding
    • Financial Results
    • Technology
    • Academia
    • Industry News
    • Features
    • Machine Translation
    • — Divider —
    • Slator Pro
    • — Divider —
    • Press Releases
    • Sponsored Content
  • Data & Research
    • Research Reports & Pro Guides
    • Language Industry Investor Map
    • Real-Time Charts of Listed LSPs
    • Language Service Provider Index
  • Podcasts & Videos
  • Events
    • Design Thinking – February 2021
    • — Divider —
    • SlatorCon Coverage
    • Other Events
  • Directory
  • RFP Center
  • Jobs
MENU
  • News
    • People Moves
    • Deal Wins
    • Demand Drivers
    • M&A and Funding
    • Financial Results
    • Technology
    • Academia
    • Industry News
    • Features
    • Machine Translation
    • — Divider —
    • Slator Pro
    • — Divider —
    • Press Releases
    • Sponsored Content
  • Data & Research
    • Research Reports & Pro Guides
    • Language Industry Investor Map
    • Real-Time Charts of Listed LSPs
    • Language Service Provider Index
  • Podcasts & Videos
  • Events
    • Design Thinking – February 2021
    • — Divider —
    • SlatorCon Coverage
    • Other Events
  • Directory
  • RFP Center
  • Jobs

Advertise on Slator! Download the 2021 Online Media Kit Now

  • Slator Market Intelligence
  • Slator Advertising Services
  • Slator Advisory
  • Login
Search
Generic filters
Exact matches only
Advertisement
How Netflix Does Subtitling for the World (ex China)

2 years ago

July 16, 2019

How Netflix Does Subtitling for the World (ex China)

Features ·

by Esther Bond

On July 16, 2019

2 years ago
Features ·

by Esther Bond

On July 16, 2019

How Netflix Does Subtitling for the World (ex China)

The past couple of years have seen the global demand for online media entertainment soar. Audiences around the world have flocked toward streaming services that offer content on-demand. When it comes to capturing a wider audience, adding content in more languages is a surefire way for streaming services to increase subscribers and revenues.

Speaking at an event hosted by Netflix in Los Gatos, California, Kathy Rokni, Director of Globalization at the online streaming giant, explained the correlation between subscribers and available languages. “In two years, we added a couple more languages, a lot more global original content, and we therefore added to our membership,” she said. The globalization team that Rokni heads up is now responsible for making Netflix content available in 27 languages. They have widened their subscriber base nearly 50% in two years and now have 149 million users, according to Rokni.

The Netflix event took place on April 28, 2019 and was organized by IMUG, a Silicon Valley-based forum for globalization, internationalization, localization, and translation professionals. Rokni invited members of her team to the stage to give the audience a behind-the-scenes look into subtitling at Netflix.

Advertisement

Sue Bolton, PM Team Manager for Content Localization, said subtitling all begins with a script, which provides the context. This context is used to “better deliver on our goal, which is to preserve creative intent,” said Ivan Buchanan, Program Manager on the same team. According to Buchanan, the script is provided in the form of an English template, which is then used as a guide by the translator.

Slator 2020 Language Industry Market Report

Data and Research, Slator reports
55 pages. Total market size, biz dev and sales insights, TMS & MT review, buyer segment analysis, M&A, Covid impact & outlook.
$480 BUY NOW

Subtitling operations are managed in Netflix’s proprietary tool, called “The Originator,” said Eva Raimondi, Project Manager on the Content Localization team. The Originator is a central hub for project managers, translators, and vendors that also includes a subtitling environment, similar to a translation environment with added features. For example, the tool “surface[s] the reading speed so the translator can extend and modify it in the waveform,” and allows translators to review annotations included in the source text and search related episodes, Raimondi said.

Raimondi also described how the team is able to track priority projects within The Originator: “Stuff that is flowing through will drop to the bottom, but we can easily see unassigned, critical, or overdue tasks.”

Growing Appetite for International Content

Project Manager Melissa Sakamoto highlighted the “growing appetite for international content, no matter what the language is,” and spoke about wanting to move away from using English as a pivot language since “it’s not always the best option to achieve our goal.” For this reason, we “remove English as a pivot language whenever that makes sense,” she added.

Slator 2018 Media Localization Report

Slator 2018 Media Localization Report

Data and Research
25-page report. Entertainment media overview. Role of the language services industry. Market size. Competitive landscape. Biz Dev and Sales.
$85 BUY NOW

Another challenge the team faces is deciding on how to deal with offensive language, which may be received differently depending on the territory. We aim to “respect creative intent and cultural sensitivities,” said Paolo Scopacasa, Language Manager for Italian and Greek.

Program Manager Eva Metz Toliver spoke on dealing with visual elements in the video that contribute to the narrative, such as on-screen text. She said certain elements do not require translation as they are universally understood. However, “if we decide to translate those and if we have the time and space, we try to differentiate between on-screen elements and dialogue by capitalizing the on-screen text and leaving the dialogue in sentence letters.”

A Lot of Licensing, Subtitles as IP

During the Q&A session that capped the event, one audience member asked whether subtitles are managed differently when content is not Netflix-owned.

According to Rokni, licensing is a big consideration in such instances. “If the content is not Netflix content, there’s a lot of licensing agreement that needs to happen. That licensing agreement is both for languages, what languages we can actually broadcast or show, and also what countries can have them,” she said.

Asked how the team deals with existing subtitles for content owned by a different studio, Rokni said “subtitles are considered kind of like an IP. So if the title was owned by Disney, for example, or by some other big or small studio, we don’t necessarily have the right to change those subtitles. But what we will do depending on how disruptive that experience could be for our members, is go back to them and give them feedback and ask them for a re-delivery, but we can’t change them ourselves.”

Slator 2019 Neural Machine Translation Report: Deploying NMT in Operations

Data and Research
32 pages, NMT state-of-the-art, 5 case studies, 30 commentaries, NMT in day-to-day operations
$85 BUY NOW

Asked whether Netflix has plans to expand into China, Rokni said that although the Netflix UI and content is available in traditional and simplified Chinese, “we have some geopolitical reason not to be in China at the moment; and some of the requirements might not necessarily align with our strategy at the moment.”

“We have some geopolitical reason not to be in China at the moment” — Kathy Rokni, Director of Globalization, Netflix

On the subject of language technology, Rokni said they are currently using speech-to-text tech for the creation of English templates and are investigating machine translation further. “If any technology can give us the creative intent that we’re looking for, we will look into it. So far, that hasn’t happened,” she said.

Revisiting one of 2018’s hot Netflix stories, one audience member inquired about Netflix’s strategy for recruiting and training linguists now that Hermes has been shut down. Allison Smith, Program Manager at Netflix, reiterated that although recruiting and training linguists was not within Netflix’s core competency, “it was well within the core competencies of a lot of the vendors we worked with — so we decided to take that testing, training, recruiting, and onboarding, and move that to our vendors.”

A full video of the Netflix presentation and Q&A was published on YouTube on July 6, 2019.

TAGS

Allison SmithDisneyEva RaimondiHermesIMUGIvan BuchananKathy RokniMediamedia entertainmentMedia LocalizationMelissa SakamotoNetflixOTTSue BoltonYoutube
SHARE
Esther Bond

By Esther Bond

Research Director at Slator. Localization enthusiast, linguist and inquisitor. London native.

Advertisement

SUBSCRIBE TO THE SLATOR WEEKLY

Language Industry Intelligence
In Your Inbox. Every Friday

SUBSCRIBE

SlatorSweepSlatorPro
ResearchRFP CENTER

PUBLISH

PRESS RELEASEDIRECTORY LISTING
JOB ADEVENT LISTING

Bespoke advisory including speaking, briefings and M&A

SLATOR ADVISORY
Advertisement

Featured Reports

See all
Slator 2020 Language Industry M&A and Funding Report

Slator 2020 Language Industry M&A and Funding Report

by Slator

Slator 2021 Data-for-AI Market Report

Slator 2021 Data-for-AI Market Report

by Slator

Slator 2020 Medtech Translation and Localization Report

Slator 2020 Medtech Translation and Localization Report

by Slator

Pro Guide: Sales and Marketing for Language Service Providers

Pro Guide: Sales and Marketing for Language Service Providers

by Slator

Press Releases

See all
Super Fast, Creative and Consistent: Supertext Launches Chat-Based Instant Translation Service

Super Fast, Creative and Consistent: Supertext Launches Chat-Based Instant Translation Service

by Supertext

Argos Multilingual Welcomes Kathleen Bostick as Localization Strategist and Senior Consultant

Argos Multilingual Welcomes Kathleen Bostick as Localization Strategist and Senior Consultant

by Argos Multilingual

Donna Thomas Joins Visual Data Media Services as Senior Vice President of Sales, Americas

Donna Thomas Joins Visual Data Media Services as Senior Vice President of Sales, Americas

by Visual Data Media Services

Upcoming Events

See All
  1. Memsource MT Post-Editing Pricing Models Webinar

    Pricing Models for MT Post-Editing Workshop

    by Memsource

    · February 3

    Hear a panel of innovative localization professionals share different approaches for MT post-editing pricing.

    More info FREE

Featured Companies

See all
Text United

Text United

Memsource

Memsource

Wordbank

Wordbank

Protranslating

Protranslating

Seprotec

Seprotec

Versacom

Versacom

Smartling

Smartling

XTM International

XTM International

Translators without Borders

Translators without Borders

STAR Group

STAR Group

memoQ Translation Technologies

memoQ Translation Technologies

Advertisement

Popular articles

Why Netflix Shut Down Its Translation Portal Hermes

Why Netflix Shut Down Its Translation Portal Hermes

by Esther Bond

The Slator 2020 Language Service Provider Index

The Slator 2020 Language Service Provider Index

by Slator

The Most Popular Language Industry Stories of 2020

The Most Popular Language Industry Stories of 2020

by Seyma Albarino

SlatorPod: The Weekly Language Industry Podcast

connect with us

footer logo

Slator makes business sense of the language services and technology market.

Our Company

  • Support
  • About us
  • Terms & Conditions
  • Privacy Policy

Subscribe to the Slator Weekly

Language Industry Intelligence
In Your Inbox. Every Friday

© 2021 Slator. All rights reserved.

Sign up to the Slator Weekly

Join over 13,000 subscribers and get the latest language industry intelligence every Friday

Your information will never be shared with third parties. No Spam.