Netflix announces ‘More Multilingual’ Experience to improve accessibility On TVs

It may not seem so in the classical sense, but multilingualism is accessibility too.

It’s the reason subtitles exist. And no, subtitles and captions aren’t the same thing.

In the spirit of making Netflix more accessible, the company on Wednesday announced subscribers now have the ability to choose from the “full list” of more than 30 languages when watching content in its TV apps. Netflix says the functionality is “much-anticipated,” noting it receives “thousands” of localization requests a month from customers. The more robust language support on TVs means Netflix has reached feature parity, as the options have been available on mobile and the Netflix website. One of its most popular shows of all-time, Netflix said, is the Korean drama Squid Game.

“As more of our members enjoy shows and films from around the world—nearly a third of all viewing on Netflix is for non-English stories—subtitles and dubbing are more important than ever,” Netflix said of its language expansion in today’s announcement. "Our catalog includes a wide variety of TV shows and movies in over 30 languages, from critically acclaimed films to binge-worthy series, which lets our members immerse themselves in different cultures and languages from around the globe.”

As enormous and entrenched in the cultural zeitgeist Netflix is now, relatively few may realize the company cares a lot about accessibility. I’ve covered Netflix’s action in this arena at close range over the last few years; my reporting has included interviews with its director of product accessibility Heather Dowdy. She’s a trailblazer insofar as she’s the company’s first-ever executive in such a role. Dowdy is, like yours truly, a CODA.