The BBC is testing ways of letting viewers tune out background noises, including music which is often so loud that it is foreground music. This should make dialogue easier to follow and allow the sounds of nature on wild life documentaries  to be heard. A trial version on the BBC website adds a slider button as well as the overall volume control. Moving the slider to the left reduces background noises of all sorts. The project is aimed chiefly at the 11 million Britons with hearing loss but will make dialogue much more comprehensible for everybody. It will also reduce, if not eliminate, superfluous and very irritating music.

The technology, which is said to be very labour intensive, is still experimental but it could become available on Iplayer and even on broadcast television as the BBC develops a ‘personalised system of broadcasting called object-based media’.