Hugo Scales Closed Captioning for Red Table Talk

The Client

The client is a production company behind Red Table Talk, a series known for its candid, multigenerational discussions on societal issues, personal struggles, and relationships. As the show gained popularity, the client recognized the need to make it accessible to viewers with hearing impairments.

The Challenge: Delivering Accurate and Timely Closed Captions

The client needed accurate, timely closed captions for Red Table Talk to ensure accessibility for deaf and hard-of-hearing viewers. Previous captioning partners fell short, providing inconsistent work, inaccuracies, and slow turnarounds, which compromised the show’s inclusivity.

Given the series’ focus on current events and trending topics, delivering precise captions within short timelines was crucial. The unscripted nature of the show posed challenges, including:

• Capturing spontaneous dialogue with disfluencies like filler words and false starts.
• Representing emotional nuances through punctuation.
• Transcribing non-verbal sounds that add context, such as laughter and coughs.
• Handling slang, idioms, and cultural references.
• Ensuring correct spelling of names and terminology.

To address these issues and meet tight production schedules, the client partnered with Hugo for precise, efficient captioning.

Hugo’s Solution: Promoting Inclusivity Through Expertise and Efficiency

Hugo’s strategy focused on four core principles to ensure project success:

Assembling a Dream Team

Hugo assembled a team of 20 skilled annotators, all native English speakers with communication qualifications and experience in accurately capturing unscripted dialogue.

Rigorous Training

The team completed a two-week intensive training program tailored to Red Table Talk’s needs. Annotators learned to transcribe filler words, false starts, elongated phrases, and non-verbal sounds like laughter and coughing accurately. This training ensured all nuances and disfluencies in conversations were captured while maintaining fast turnaround times.

Dual-Layer Quality Assurance

Hugo implemented a dual-layer quality assurance process. The first layer ensured the transcripts accurately captured the context and tone, while the second focused on factual accuracy, ensuring fluency and precise reflection of the spoken content.

Continuous Optimization

Hugo’s team of L&D specialists and quality analysts continuously monitored and optimized workflows, making data-driven improvements such as accurately capturing overlapping dialogue, attributing speakers in multi-person conversations, and representing regional accents. This ongoing optimization ensured captions consistently met and exceeded target SLAs.

Delivering Superior Results with Consistent Quality and Speed

“Partnering with Hugo has been key to our captioning success. Their consistent accuracy, ability to meet tight deadlines, and efficient processes have been vital to Red Table Talk, ensuring our content stays accessible and relevant to all viewers without sacrificing quality.” — Red Table Talk Production Team

The collaboration between the Client and Hugo yielded impressive results:

• Over 10,000 audio annotations were completed in weeks.
• 98% transcription accuracy, surpassing the industry standard of 90-95%.
• 2-4 minutes average handling time per audio file (30% faster than other vendors).
• Team size scaled up to 10x within weeks to meet demands.
• Adoption of Hugo’s transcription guidelines and QA rubric as best practices by the Client and other vendors.

Ongoing Commitment to Inclusivity and Accessibility

The production team acknowledges the importance of Hugo’s work in fostering an inclusive space for candid discussions. As Red Table Talk continues to explore significant topics and facilitate meaningful conversations, Hugo remains a trusted partner in ensuring the show’s content is accurately represented and easily accessible to all viewers.