The International Content Boom Has Made Subtitlers and Dubbers the Lifeblood of Streaming

In 2020, “Parasite” director Bong Joon-ho used his Golden Globe acceptance speech to call attention to the “one-inch tall barrier of subtitles” that kept some audiences — American moviegoers in particular — from enjoying the myriad content produced outside of their native languages. 

Roughly two years later, audiences around the world are climbing that wall, thanks in part to hits such as “Lupin,” “Money Heist” and “Squid Game,” TV shows that have all become global hits on Netflix. “Squid Game,” from South Korea, clocked more than 1.6 billion viewing hours on the platform in its first 28 days, making it Netflix’s most-watched original of all time. The second season of “Bridgerton,” Netflix’s most-watched English language program, logged less than half of “Squid Game’s” total in the same amount of time. 

Experts working within the localization industry say that the evolution of streaming has changed the game for foreign-language content, making shows and movies available at a speed and scale they’ve never been before. 

“Our market has grown substantially in the last two to three years, and the fundamental reason for that is the explosion of direct-to-consumer streaming platforms,” said Chris Carey, executive vice president of marketing and corporate development at Iyuno-SDI, which provides translations, subtitling and dubbing services for major entertainment firms. “The content producers can reach those markets much easier than they could going through a pay-TV operator, which was sort of the gatekeeper to many of the international markets.” 

The coronavirus pandemic, and the subsequent shuttering of movie theaters, forced some companies to turn to their back catalogs and release older programming in new markets — and languages. That, too, has provided subtitlers and dubbers with more work than they can handle. 

“We used to worry about doing an episode a week for broadcast,” said Simon Constable, senior vice president of global language services at Visual Data Media Services. “Now, we’re getting eight episodes in a week.” 

The demand, coupled with the challenge of sorting out cultural differences across markets, has placed more pressure than ever on those tasked with translating content for local audiences.

“If you don’t get the localization right in one or two of the episodes, the audience is not going to watch the whole series,” said Teresa Phillips, co-founder and CEO of Spherex, a technology company that helps content producers assess if their shows and films are culturally sensitive throughout hundreds of countries. “You really diminish the value of your investment.” 

Add in supply chain issues and a lack of high-quality translators, and localization providers face obstacles much higher than the “one-inch tall barrier” that Bong Joon-ho mentioned. Compared to where international content was a decade ago, those can be good problems to have.

Language localization preferences are rooted in culture

Per a March Morning Consult survey of adults in 15 countries, consumer preferences for subtitles or dubbing largely fell along continental lines. 

Respondents in Russia, Germany, Italy, Spain and France largely preferred dubbing when viewing content not in their native language, while roughly 7 in 10 adults in China and South Korea and a plurality of Indian and Japanese consumers said they liked to watch with subtitles more.