Sir, - I wish to assure Anne Cradden (January 12th) that RTE does not censor or otherwise change subtitles on the movies it shows. Your correspondent complained that the "colourful" New York vernacular in Saturday Night Fever, which was audible on the screen, had been bowdlerised in the subtitles. The fact is that the subtitles were already in that condition with the film as supplied to RTE - and could not be "desanitised" by us. I am sorry if this spoiled the enjoyment of any of our deaf viewers.
RTE's policy is to subtitle programmes verbatim, and that certainly would have applied had we been doing the subtitling in this case.
On the wider subject of subtitling, we are actively pursuing the expansion of this highly specialised and labour intensive service. RTE currently subtitles 25.5 hours of acquired material, 10 hours of home-produced programming and three live shows each week. - Yours, etc.
Kevin Healy, Director, Public Affairs, RTE, Dublin 4.