Are Foreign Language Programs On Television Subtitled, Dubbed Or Practically Absent In Your Country?
In Finland, all foreign-language programs on television are subtitled except for children's films that may be dubbed. But in some countries where some language with a large number of speakers is spoken that may not be the case. For example, when I visited Italy in 2002, I watched Star Trek Next Generation on TV dubbed in Italian. It was an interesting experience.
Here's what Darth Vader sounds like in languages other than English:
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In Korea, they are only dubbed for children usually animated stuff and even then when a Disney film comes out it's 50-50 in theatres with less at night. They are usually subbed here. Plenty of subbed stuff. Mostly English obviously.
Here in America, it's very, very rare to see anything subbed. I remember browsing through channels in college, and stumbling upon an anime movie being played in Japanese. I remember thinking that that was rather unique, most foreign content is dubbed for American broadcast.
I guess it’s cheaper to sub. Voice acting makes better economic sense with more viewers.
While you are correct, it's still rather fascinating that American TV avoids subtitles as much as they do.
It takes some getting used to for the audience to be able to read the subtitles without getting distracted, I guess. So much English language programming exists already that it rarely makes economic sense to subtitle anything because it would drive away a portion of the viewers.