France 2, a French state-owned television channel, has been subtitling its programmes for deaf and hard of hearing viewers in real-time since 2004, whereas TF1 and M6, two private channels, introduced subtitles in 2007. Different approaches were taken and different techniques are used by these television broadcasters, with varying results. The aim of this paper is to analyse to what extent these subtitles are ‘acceptable’, compared with production standards and directives from the field of translatology (e.g., Neves 2005, Gottlieb 1992, Karamitroglou 1998, Ivarsson & Carroll 1998), current practice (Robson 2004, Independent Television Commission 1999, Canadian Association of Broadcasters 2004, National Association of the Deaf 2007) and assessment criteria (Gambier 2004, Gottlieb 1992).
For this paper, I used research carried out by De Linde and Kay in order to “identify characteristic features of broadcast subtitles” (1999: 39) and subtitle samples from different programme types on TF1 and France 2 (main news, interviews and sport) to compare and analyse these with respect to the following variables: (1) synchronicity between subtitle and dialogue, (2) synchronicity between subtitle and image and (3) the extent of editing. As a result, different observations were made for each programme type and channel, and some recommendations can be put forward to improve the quality of live subtitles on French television.

References
Canadian Association of Broadcasters (cab) (2004): Closed Captioning Standards and Protocol for Canadian English Language Broadcasters. http://www.dcmp.org/caai/nadh20.pdf.
De Linde, Z. & Kay, N. (1999): The Semiotics of Subtitling, Manchester, St Jerome Publishing.
Gambier, Y. (2004): « La traduction audiovisuelle : un genre en expansion ». In: Meta, Vol. 49, n.1, pp. 1-11.
Gottlieb, H. (1992): “Subtitling - a new university discipline”. In: Dollerup & Loddegaard (éd.), Teaching Translation and Interpreting: training, talent, and experience, Amsterdam, John Benjamins, pp.161-170.
Independent Television Commission (ICT) (1999): ITC Guidance on Standards for Subtitling, February 1999, London, ITC. http://www.ofcom.org.uk/tv/ifi/guidance/tv_access_serv/archive/subtitling_stnds/itc_stnds _subtitling_word.doc.
Ivarsson, J., Carroll M. (1998): Subtitling. Simrishamm, Sweden, Trans-Edit.
Karamitroglou F. (1998): « A Proposed Set of Subtitling Standards in Europe ». In: Translation Journal, Vol. 2 n. 2. http://accurapid.com/journal/04stndrd.htm.
National Association Of The Deaf (NAD) (2007): Captioning Key. Guidelines and Preferred Techniques, Captioned Media Program, Spartanburg, NAD. http://www.cfv.org/caai/nadh7.pdf
Neves, J. (2005) Audiovisual Translation: Subtitling for the Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing, Unpublished PhD, London: University of Surrey Roehampton. http://roehampton.openrepository.com/roehampton/bitstream/ 10142/12580/1/neves%20a udiovisual.pdf.
Robson, G. (2004): The Closed Captioning Handbook, Burlington, Oxford, Elsevier.

Anne-Laure TIXIER obtained her degree in translation from the Department of Applied Linguistics, Translating and Interpreting at Saarland University (Germany). At present she is a freelance translator. After following a seminar on audiovisual translation with Prof. Gerzymisch-Arbogast and a practice-oriented seminar on subtitling at Titelbild GmbH, she decided to write her diploma thesis on live subtitling on French television as two French broadcasters introduced live subtitling on their channel for the presidential election campaign.