Understanding Closed Captions and why they’re important

This was originally posted on the Peach website. Find out more about the rebrand from Peach to Cape.io.

Closed captions (CC) bring videos to life by displaying dialogue, sound effects, and key audio cues, making content more accessible for deaf and hard-of-hearing viewers. They can be switched on or off, giving viewers more control while ensuring messages are clear—even when the sound is off.

In 2023, Netflix said that 40% of all their users globally have closed captioning on all the time and 80% use them at least once a month — that’s way higher than the 20% of global viewers who need captioning due to hearing loss. 

Whether watching shows in a non-native language, parents juggling little ones or the growing number of viewers who just prefer having captions on — having access to closed options is an option people love. They give audiences the flexibility to customise their viewing experience. CCs don’t just display spoken words—they also capture sound effects, songs being used and key audio cues, ensuring that no important details are missed. Whether you rely on them or just prefer watching with captions, they make content more inclusive and engaging for everyone.

What exactly are Closed Captions?

We thought we would help by breaking down how Closed Captions actually work. Created for people who are deaf or hard of hearing so they include what people are saying, plus background sounds and context — which is unlike subtitles, which only translate speech. 

Closed captions don’t affect the video itself if you don’t want to view them, but are easily switched on if you do want to see them — normally through a ‘CC’ button. This is different to ‘burned-in’ captions, also known as ‘open captions’ where they can not be removed from the video and are often used in social media when it is likely that the audio is by default off.

There are three elements to what Closed Captions are: 

1. Transcription: Audio is converted into text, including dialogue and includes sound effects (like [laughter] or [door creaks]).

2. Time-coding: The text is synced to match when words are spoken or action takes place.

3. Display options: Viewers can turn Closed Captions on or off.

History of captions

Closed captions have been around for years – during the 1950s films used ‘intertitles’ and The National Captioning Institute (NCI) launched in 1979, pushing captions into mainstream TV. Closed captions then began to appear on major US networks during the 80s – laws were then introduced making captioning standard on TV sets. The UK and then other countries followed suit. 

Today, with digital TV and streaming services, captioning is made more common. Social media auto-captions took off, though accuracy still needs work. AI and speech recognition are improving real-time captions, making content more accessible than ever.

Why you should definitely be using Closed Captions

Closed captions offer huge benefits for advertising, making ads more accessible, engaging, and effective across different platforms. 12 million people in the UK are deaf or hard of hearing, and 1.3 billion people worldwide live with a disability. Without captions, many viewers could miss key messages in an ad, reducing its impact. 85% of Facebook videos are watched on mute, and many people scroll through Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter without sound. On top of this, search engines can’t "listen" to videos, but they can read captions — making ads more discoverable in search results.

Closed captions aren’t just an accessibility feature—they enhance engagement, boost brand impact, and make ads more effective across all platforms. Whether it’s TV, BVOD, or social media, captioned ads reach more people and leave a lasting impression.

Peach can help

At Cape.io, we are all about giving our clients and their audiences the opportunity to access video content with ease. 

We offer CC around the world, check out our previous blog posts about all things accessibility — closed captions are mandatory in Canada across their advertising whilst in the US they remain ‘a nice to have’. In the UK we know that approximately 20% of TV adverts have captions, meaning the UK has quite a way to go – this figure is similar in France with 15% of their ads having captions. In Spain, they have made it mandatory across all their government and pharmaceutical adverts to have captions. For more information about other regulations across different markets, check out our previous blog about all things accessibility.  

At Cape.io, we offer help with guiding you on how best to get closed captions on your adverts across all markets – reach out to us today to understand how we can help you 🤝