BBC boss vows to END the mumbling dialogue which has plagued hit shows including Happy Valley, Jamaica Inn and War and Peace 

BBC boss: Tony Hall told executives to examine ‘audibility’ issues, following a torrent of complaints about the ‘shocking’ sound quality in Happy Valley

It is a problem that has blighted television drama for years. But the boss of the BBC has finally vowed to end mumbling on shows such as Happy Valley.

Director general Tony Hall told executives to examine ‘audibility’ issues, following a torrent of complaints about the series’ ‘shocking’ sound quality, minutes from the BBC Trust reveal.

He also instructed them to make sure the sound is clear on other programmes.

Fans of Happy Valley complained that the popular drama, starring Sarah Lancashire, was impossible to follow because its characters mumbled their lines.

Many viewers ended up watching the programmes with subtitles in order to understand what was going on. Others said they had to constantly adjust the volume on their television sets just to follow the dialogue.

At one point, Richard Madeley, the television presenter, complained that he had to re-watch the same parts again and again. ‘Anyone else have REAL trouble hearing the dialogue? We had to keep rewinding it,’ he said on Twitter.

But – in a farcical move - the BBC told viewers that the real problem was the Yorkshire accent.

‘We worked very hard to ensure everything was audible while keeping the sense of reality and the rawness of performances,’ a spokesman said in February, when the series was still on air.

‘Happy Valley is a drama that has been lauded for its realism and dramatic pathos – as such the dialogue is representative of the characters and area in which it is based.’

The show, in which Miss Lancashire plays a hard-nosed policewoman, is set in West Yorkshire and filmed in and around Bradford and Huddersfield.

Requiring subtitles: Fans of Happy Valley complained that the popular drama, starring Sarah Lancashire (pictured), was impossible to follow because its characters mumbled their lines

Unsurprisingly, the BBC’s explanation went down badly with licence fee payers in the region, who said that even they struggled to follow the programme. They accused the BBC of ‘patronising’ them with ‘nonsense’ excuses.

‘[I am] Yorkshire born and Yorkshire bred but have trouble hearing. It sounds muffled [and I am] missing half of what’s going on,’ one viewer said online.

‘Patronising rubbish,’ said another. ‘[The BBC] can’t even admit when they get it wrong. How on earth can we not understand the Yorkshire dialect?’

Even BBC bosses had a different explanation behind the scenes, the BBC Trust’s minutes confirm.

‘Members discussed viewer complaints regarding audibility and sound quality on Happy Valley,’ the record of the meeting states.

‘The director general noted that he took all such complaints seriously and had already asked BBC Television to look into this matter and consider any immediate issues as well as identifying any lessons for future commissions.’

What's going on? In 2014, millions of viewers tuned out of Jamaica Inn (pictured) because they could not understand what was happening in the West Country drama

The BBC has refused to reveal how many complaints it received about the drama series, which ended last month and attracted nearly seven million viewers per episode.

However, it is certainly not the first time that the corporation has had problems with the sound on one of its major television series.

In 2014, millions of viewers tuned out of Jamaica Inn because they could not understand what was happening in the West Country drama.

In January this year, viewers of the BBC's big budget adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's novel War and Peace also complained about being unable it to hear it properly due to the actors mumbling. 

And in 2013, Lord Hall said the corporation could look at how to stop actors ‘muttering’ in its TV dramas.

‘I don’t want to sound like a grumpy old man, but I also think muttering is something we could have a look at,’ he said. ‘Actors muttering can be testing - you find you have missed a line - you have to remember that you have an audience.’