In the U.S., new programming broadcast on television needs to be accessible to the hearing-impaired, and closed captioning is the tool most frequently used to provide such access. From all the audiovisual content available to viewers, live programs pose the greatest challenge to captioners, who, in this scenario, are required to provide accurate subtitles that reach the viewers with as limited delay as possible. Due to the difficulties involved in the production of real-time subtitles, research exploring the quality of live captioning is not yet abundant. However, having precise insights on this matter could help improve current practices and better accommodate the users’ needs. Drawing on existing literature from the field of Media Accessibility, this article presents the main findings of a study exploring the quality of the live closed captioning delivered during one of the most widely followed televised events of 2018 in the U.S.: the Super Bowl LII. The parameters that the Federal Communications Commission identifies with quality (completeness, placement, synchronicity and accuracy) were analyzed. The results point at completeness as the trait with more room for improvement and show that captions achieved impeccable placement, a commendable average latency and very high accuracy rates.

在美国，有听力障碍的人士必须可以访问电视上播放的新节目，而隐藏式字幕则是最常用于提供此类节目的工具。从观看者可用的所有视听内容中，直播节目给字幕制作者带来了最大的挑战，在这种情况下，字幕制作者必须提供准确的字幕，字幕尽可能地少地延迟到达观看者。由于制作实时字幕存在困难，因此有关实时字幕质量的研究尚不丰富。但是，对此事有准确的见识可以帮助改善当前的做法并更好地满足用户的需求。利用媒体可访问性领域的现有文献，本文介绍了一项研究的主要发现，该研究探索了在2018年美国最受欢迎的电视转播事件之一：超级碗LII中提供的实时隐藏字幕的质量。分析了联邦通信委员会确定的质量参数（完整性，位置，同步性和准确性）。结果表明完整性是具有更多改进空间的特征，并且说明字幕的位置无可挑剔，平均延迟值得称赞，而且准确率非常高。