• by October 31, 2008

Great post [from Wayne Friedman]!

Interesting about the dubbing issue. As he pointed out comedy should not be dubbed, but that same rule can also be extended to other formats. When I first went to work in media in Eastern Europe, I was suprised that in many countries dubbing was hardly ever used -- for comedy, fiction, etc. Their audiences want to see content in its original version and use subtitles as the norm. This is an excellent rule to maintain content integrity, avoid misunderstandings -- and also a very economic way to purchase programming (no dubbing costs).

I will add, that subtitling is also not error-proof -- but at least if there is an error, the original version (language) is still there....

Only wanted to add that the challenges of global exporting of media are really quite tricky -- regardless of dubbing, subtitling and many other factors. Could it be that a cable channel dedicated to American comedy [Comedy Central in Germany] has run its course and needs to be balanced with regional / national content?

Does anyone have any input from countries that routinely use dubbing, such as Italy, Hungary, etc.?