Accessibility caption obligation register for published clips
Problem
Captioning gets added when someone remembers, not before a clip goes out. The social media manager posts a highlight the moment it is cut, and captions are queued behind it: added an hour later, sometimes at the end of the day, sometimes never, if a keeper save gets buried by the next match. There is no single record of which clips are still missing captions, so nobody notices the gap until a supporter flags it or someone asks for evidence that the accessibility policy is actually being followed. The one list that exists is a shared spreadsheet tab the media operations coordinator updates when they get to it, and it stops being trustworthy the moment two people forget to log the same afternoon.
Product idea
This is an obligation register, not a captioning tool. Every published clip creates a record with a publish timestamp, a deadline set by the organisation's own rule, either before publish or within a fixed window after, and a status: not started, in progress, captioned, verified. Overdue items are flagged on a single view the media operations coordinator checks each morning, and an escalation email goes to the head of content once an item passes its deadline uncaught. Each record keeps a timestamped history of who marked it captioned and when, giving an audit trail that can be checked against accessibility obligations such as WCAG 2.2 or the UK Equality Act 2010. It does not generate captions, judge their quality, or touch the video file itself.
Who it is for
Media operations coordinators who own the register day to day, social media managers publishing clips against the deadline, video editors marking captions complete, and the head of content who answers for accessibility commitments.
Possible first version
A single register screen listing every published clip with its publish timestamp, deadline and status, populated by CSV import from the existing publish schedule rather than a live feed from the social platform. A configurable deadline rule, either before publish or a fixed number of hours after, manual status updates by editors, an overdue view sorted by how far past deadline each item is, and a daily escalation email listing anything overdue. No integration with the social publishing tool, the digital asset management platform or the video editor in version one: clips are added by CSV or by hand.
- Build classification
- Workflow application
- Rough effort
- 4-6 week first release
- Roles involved
- Media operations coordinator, Social media manager, Head of content, Video editor
- Relevant to
- Professional club, League office, Women's league, Collegiate athletics
- Systems in play
- Social publishing tools, Spreadsheets, Digital asset management
- Product framing
- Manage compliance
Questions we get asked
What do we need before this is worth switching on?
A list of what gets published, when, and who is responsible for captioning it. Most media teams can produce that from their existing publish schedule or an export from their social tool within a day. The deadline rule matters more than any integration: whether captions have to exist before a clip goes live or within a set window after, and that rule differs by organisation and by platform. Agree it before build, because the register is only as trustworthy as the rule it is checking against.
Our editors already caption clips before they post. Why do we need a register for something we already do?
If every clip is captioned every time without exception, the register will confirm that and stay quiet, which is a reasonable outcome. In practice the gap shows up on the busy days: a second match in the same window, someone on leave, a highlight cut and pushed live in a hurry. The register exists for those days, not the calm ones, and for the moment someone asks for evidence that captioning happened rather than a description of what usually happens.
Who is stuck chasing the overdue list once this exists?
Usually the media operations coordinator, because they already hold the closest thing to this list today. The tool reduces the chasing rather than removing it: instead of scrolling a spreadsheet or a messaging thread to find what is missing, they get a short list of what is overdue and who owns it. If nobody is willing to act on that list, it becomes a record of missed deadlines rather than a way of avoiding them.
Does this add the captions itself?
No. It tracks whether the obligation has been met and by when, not the captioning work itself. Caption creation stays with whatever process the team already uses, whether that is manual captioning or an automated captioning feature inside the video platform. Keeping the two separate is deliberate: a tracking layer that also tried to generate captions would be harder to trust as an independent record when someone asks whether an obligation was actually met.
Is this your workflow?
Tell us one sports workflow that still runs on paper, spreadsheets, WhatsApp or an outdated system. We will map it and show you what a simpler product looks like.
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