I just viewed an episode of Misfits on hulu.com that had English subtitles on a British show. Apparently, the accents the characters used was so strong that viewers were having trouble understanding them.
I don't know about everyone else, but there is one character on Misfits who has a very strong regional accent that I personally find extremely difficult to understand.
I've seen it done on Scottish and Northern Irish accents before.
Actually, that Poor Kids documentary on BBC1 recently had a lot of subtitling. I'd assume they'd say it was because they were kids and were speaking less distinctly than adults, but it was a bit patronising.
I've also seen German subtitles on a Swiss programme broadcast in Germany. The presenter wasn't even speaking dialect per se, just accented Standard German. (I almost wrote "heavily", but I'm not really a good judge, since I learned German where the local accent is very similar and so I don't have as much trouble with Swiss speakers as a lot of people would. I didn't have any trouble in this case, for instance.)
They do it for Germans as well - I've seen subtitles for people from Saxony, Bavaria, Swabia and Lower Saxonians who had a Low German twang to their speech, so I'd guess it's done to others as well (for the record, I had no trouble understanding any of those). I don't watch much TV any more and wasn't in Germany for about two years, though, so my information is likely outdated.
It makes sense to me that American viewers might request subtitles for certain accents that they're not often exposed to, and with which they haven't developed a lot of familiarity. Some British accents are much more common in media broadcast in America, and I don't know that they're any less "strong"(ly different from American accents) than the accents you're talking about -- just more familiar.
On Japanese news it's common to print subtitles (in Japanese) when non-announcers are being interviewed, particularly if the people are either from rural areas or old, so they are likely to have accents or speak in less commonly-known dialects. The subtitles will be in standard language.
Similarly for politicians they will sometimes do it, just to give the gist of what they are saying, usually then the subtitles are in plain language while of course the politician is tarting it up with all sorts of obsequious honorifics.
As for English, I have needed to keep the subtitles on for some movies set in Scotland. The accent is one thing, but there's also all sorts of slang. If I see it printed out, I can pick up the meaning from context, but if it's odd (to me) words also in an accent, it's a double mystery so not enough clues.
I understand it's not that unusual for some US viewers to struggle with regional British accents. I'm aware of a documentary about the band Oasis which was subtitled in parts for its US release, while parts of the film Trainspotting were re-dubbed with the actors speaking slower.
I also remember watching some trashy American talk show some years ago which featured a satellite interview with a guest's English boyfriend (who spoke with a fairly strong Estuary accent). After he'd been speaking for a few minutes, the host interrupted him to turn to camera and asked "Is he speaking English?!" (I think I may have thrown something at the TV at that point ;)
My boyfriend, despite speaking a couple of foreign languages, is one of those who struggles. I remember showing him a a few minutes of Never Mind the Buzzcocks once and he confessed to me he could only understand about 50% of what Ryan Jarman of the Cribs was saying (and nothing at all from Bez of the Happy Mondays). And one of the many reasons I preferred Simon Amstell to Mark Lamarr on that programme is that I could always understand everything he said, whereas I was always missing about a third of Lamarr's jokes.
I was just thinking about that program -- it contains more jokes/comments about accents and voices than any other I've heard, and definitely more than would ever happen in an American TV show.
(For instance, a couple of days ago I watched an old episode in which Mark Lamarr was unable to understand Fish, a Scottish singer. Here on YouTube, starting at about 3:40. It's partly because he's both mumbling and speaking fast, but partly because of his accent; he jokingly adopts another accent to make himself understood.)
Part of the reason for that, I suspect, is that Phil Jupitus is quite talented when it comes to putting on accents. Here's a lovely bit of back-and-forth between him and Stephen Fry where his imitation of Geordie utterly defeats your Cambridge-educated National Fucking Treasure:
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On UK TV I don't think I've ever seen anyone being subtitled because of a regional accent.
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Actually, that Poor Kids documentary on BBC1 recently had a lot of subtitling. I'd assume they'd say it was because they were kids and were speaking less distinctly than adults, but it was a bit patronising.
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Similarly for politicians they will sometimes do it, just to give the gist of what they are saying, usually then the subtitles are in plain language while of course the politician is tarting it up with all sorts of obsequious honorifics.
As for English, I have needed to keep the subtitles on for some movies set in Scotland. The accent is one thing, but there's also all sorts of slang. If I see it printed out, I can pick up the meaning from context, but if it's odd (to me) words also in an accent, it's a double mystery so not enough clues.
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I also remember watching some trashy American talk show some years ago which featured a satellite interview with a guest's English boyfriend (who spoke with a fairly strong Estuary accent). After he'd been speaking for a few minutes, the host interrupted him to turn to camera and asked "Is he speaking English?!" (I think I may have thrown something at the TV at that point ;)
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(For instance, a couple of days ago I watched an old episode in which Mark Lamarr was unable to understand Fish, a Scottish singer. Here on YouTube, starting at about 3:40. It's partly because he's both mumbling and speaking fast, but partly because of his accent; he jokingly adopts another accent to make himself understood.)
(edited because my HTML was faulty)
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqRkkVQ6OSE.
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