ITV has made a signed version of its second election debate available on its ITVX platform within 24 hours after it was first broadcast on Thursday – reaching a turnaround time the broadcaster failed to meet for its first leaders’ debate last week.
Representatives from seven political parties – the Conservative Party, Labour Party, Liberal Democrats, Green Party, Reform UK, Scottish National Party and Plaid Cymru – took part in The ITV Election Debate 2024 on Thursday night, with newsreader Julie Etchingham moderating the discussion.
The event was the second debate to be broadcast on ITV and helmed by Etchingham, after Conservative and Labour Party leaders Rishi Sunak and Sir Keir Starmer went head-to-head in a debate last Tuesday.
However, the channel was threatened with possible legal action in the run-up to the event, after Liam O’Dell revealed the programme – titled Sunak vs Starmer – would not come with a live BSL interpreter, but would have live subtitles available instead.
“As guidance, we do not have the operational or technical capability to offer live BSL for the programming on this occasion,” an ITV spokeswoman said.
Following the pre-action letter being sent to the broadcaster by disability lawyer Chris Fry, on behalf of Deaf actor and campaigner Katie Rowley, ITV revised its stance to say it would provide a signed version of the debate on its streaming platform ITVX within 24 hours after the show was broadcast.
ITV went on to break such a promise the next day, Wednesday 5 June, as this website reported the programme did not have a BSL option available up to 10:10pm that evening – around the time the event had concluded the day before – and instead came sometime between 11:38pm and 11:48pm.
An ITV spokeswoman did not comment on the delay, but later confirmed Thursday’s debate would come with British Sign Language interpretation on ITVX “following the event”.
Unlike the first event, ITV did not give a timeframe for BSL to be made available online for The ITV Election Debate 2024, but a signed version was listed on ITVX as of 9:52pm, before the 24-hour window closed at around 10:10pm.
Fry had previously written to ITV calling on the broadcaster to provide live BSL interpretation as it is “morally the right thing to do”.
Images: ITV News/YouTube.
Liam O'Dell 