In partnership with The Media Access Charitable Trust (Able), Warner Bros. Discovery has developed its platforms to host audio description provided by Able, opening up their content to the 180,000+ New Zealanders who are blind, deafblind, vision impaired and low-vision.
The Association of Blind Citizens of New Zealand, New Zealand’s leading blindness consumer organisation, says: “Blind Citizens NZ applauds the collective efforts of Able and Warner Bros in bringing more audio-described television content to the blind community.” National President Jonathan Godfrey says, “we’ve been waiting a long time for more broadcasters to come on board. It’s a great achievement to see a commercial broadcaster going the extra mile and introducing audio description for the blind community. This will increase the range of programmes and hours of audio description for us and others who benefit.”
Dan Buckingham, Able’s Chief Executive says: “It’s fantastic to be able to celebrate the launch of audio description on Warner Bros. Discovery! While we’ve been delivering audio description to New Zealand audiences since 2011, this is a significant milestone in our quest to make more content accessible and have it available in more places, working towards our ultimate vision of an Aotearoa where everyone has equal access to audiovisual media.”
Audio Description will be available from Wednesday 5th October on shows including Nadia’s Farm and Wild Heroes, with an increasing amount of content available over time as the service expands.
About Audio Description:
Audio Description is an alternate audio track that narrates the on-screen action, so that people who are blind, deafblind, visually impaired or low vision can follow the story.
A full list of free-to-air audio described content can be found here: https://able.co.nz/audio-description/audio-described-listings/.
Instructions to turn on AD can be found here: https://able.co.nz/audio-description/how-to-access/.
