Lower third

A lower third is an on-screen graphic that appears in the lower portion of the frame to identify who or what is on screen. Most often it's a person's name and role — hence the two lines you usually see — but it can also caption a location, a phone number or a topic.

The name comes from its position: the lower third of the screen, where it sits without covering faces or the main action. It's an overlay, typically with a transparent background, brought on as someone starts speaking and taken off shortly after. On modern live streams it's rendered as a live web page via a browser source, so its text can be changed on air without re-exporting anything.