Yesterday, I passively attended a panel sponsored by the American Council of the Blind through their Audio Description Project on what they are all doing as streamers. in attendance were reps from Apple, Amazon, Disney (for both Disney Plus and hulu), MAX, Netflix, Paramount Plus, and peacock. The event was hosted by Carl Richardson, who has the temperament necessary to get these people to come back to the table each year. I do not. That’s why I’m over here, speaking my own thoughts, not endorsed or working for ACB/ADP.

Of course, i have some thoughts. In my YouTube video, where I break down each streamer and my reaction, I already put that out into the world. This time, here are my biggest takeaways from the event.

1) We get it. you are committed.

Jesus. We spent a lot of time in self congratulatory mode with each streamer talking about how committed they are, and how they plan to stay very committed. very few offered any actual tangible numbers or statistics about their future commitment, other than “we will keep doing what we do”, which so frequently isn’t enough. As the Amazon rep noted, her service has over 100,000 titles (including Free Vee and VOD), but only about 4,000 titles with AD. Her plan is to keep using TTS to bridge the gap, and get more audio description, but clear numbers aren’t given. Other than Amazon original content, how many titles do you create AD for to help bridge that gap? Give me numbers. Tell me you did 100 last year, and next year you plan to do 150 titles that are not Amazon originals. Expand that catalogue. Will we ever get to the kind of percentage that matters within the lifetime of most of the members in that room? I’m on the younger end, and at no point did any streamer make me feel like they had a goal of 100% audio description by a certain date. It’s kinda like going green. i want to know how far you’ll go, and the date you plan to get there. Instead, they all remain vaguely committed to expanding audio description. But, as we can tell as users, the number of titles, and hours of programming, varies wildly from service to service. Be more clear.

2) Let’s Expand The List

With all the talk about audio description not travelling, which was at fuck me levels of silly, we have to close that gap. The only way these reps can’t keep talking around it is if we offer an invite to distributors and content creators who do not have their own streaming service. That means, Sony has to show up and talk about how they help the audio description movement. Lionsgate can come, and explain why Starz is at zero, and also their film library. A24 and Neon have big enough libraries at this point to warrant an invite, and some other streamers like Tubi, Roku, AMC Plus, and possibly even ones without AD like Acorn, Crunchyroll, MGM Plus, and BritBox should be invited. if they see their competition is doing this, and there’s a demand, perhaps they will start up their own. make a day of it. I would gladly sit through a long ass panel if I felt like not just the audio description community and blind users had some more results, but that the streamers really saw each other, and that competitive nature kicked in and they started vying for our dollars. Next year, maybe even let the streamers talk abased on the amount of content they offer, leaving the smallest for last. perhaps it will encourage them to not be last, if they know they are last.

3) Netflix Needed To Talk About It’s Foreign Language Content more

I think Netflix specifically needs to be more transparent in telling us how foreign language titles get audio description. it can’t just be viewership, because I’ve seen titles trending in the top 10, and never get AD. So, what is the official word? squid game didn’t launch with AD, and it put the blind audience behind on the phenomenon. We have to be able to trigger audio description production quicker, so we can participate with our sighted friends who seem to be enjoying something that we can’t. To their credit, they have written AD for shows that never had it, like Better Call Saul adn outlander, something that can be celebrated, but i wanted to directly ask how you can look at yourself in the morning knowing you have a Best Picture nominee with no audio description… and it’s a Netflix original. Why, after all these years, does Roma not have English Audio Description? If we all agree it’s an accessibility tool, and not for fun, then why? If it’s a matter of Alfonso Cuaron being a dick to blind people, perhaps we shouldn’t be signing deals with talent that would openly contractually force you to exclude a disabled audience. Just some fuel for thought.

4) Hulu’s presentation Sucked

hulu came in with Disney, but yet it’s only 2/3rds Disney right now. i know what the plans are, but the Peacock guy needed to be ready to comment on some Hulu stuff. Directly, we needed to have a conversation about why hulu seemingly has no audio description for films that are not Hulu originals, why they are OK with partially narrated shows, and what the fuck is up with FX on Hulu? Stop that shit. It’s a Hulu original. you can’t watch those shows anywhere else, but if you put “FX On” in front, it’s like it absolves hulu from needing to provide AD. There’s no audio description for Season 1 of The Bear. Why the hell not? It’s winning awards. Season 2 has audio description. Do you expect blind people to just skip seasons? That show was a bitch to follow without AD. A lot of the other streamers said they always ask for the audio description when it exists, and I’ve been straight up told by Hulu customer service reps No. I’ve told them I know something has an audio description track, and i even know who recorded it, and they still don’t use it or bother to even seek it out. As was pointed out by a friend in my audio description group, he knows and has first hand knowledge that audio description was recorded for Season 1 of The Bear. Where is it? hulu got let off the hook.

5) Limited Resources? Let me help.

As the MAX rep noted, they have a limited amount of resources for AD, so catching up on library titles can be hard. Let me streamline that shit for you. it’s really simple. I could go into a longer list about which films are likely to matter more, but if you are attempting to make a sequel or revive or reboot, then you do the original. Netflix actually releases their streaming data all the time, and this is a great metric. Thank you Netflix. Because Netflix does this, we see frequently that when a new season drops, old seasons start trending again. It’s like, people jump back in, or start watching for the first time. This was most recently seen when Never Have I Ever’s 4th season dropped, and pulled two of the older seasons into the top 10. Even Carl mentioned that with Indy 5 hitting theatres, he ws rewatching the first four films. People tend to get caught up. So, for example, when Hulu doesn’t describe the film History of The World part 1 when they are dropping the sequel, it’s a very obvious move that there would be more interest in the original. Paramount doesn’t have the first 4 Scream films described. HBO just revived Clone high, but the original has no AD. Gremlins hasn’t been seen since the 80’s. Maybe if you want your animated show to do better, you should put some AD on the first two films? I loved when Carl brought up having just seen Smokey and the Bandit with audio description, without mentioning that the sequel doesn’t have it. Paramount has a Transformers film in theatres right now, yet not all of the previous films have audio description. Justified is coming back this summer, yet it has no audio description. Frasier is being revived at Paramount Plus, and it has no audio description. Beyond that, I would say Yellowjackets should be a priority for them, as it was nominated last. Year for Emmys, and is expected to repeat again. It’s just two seasons worth right now. Get on it.

6) And while we’re at it…

What’s up with congratulating yourself for partial description? Seriously. Yes, some Showtime series have AD, but it’s the most recent season. Are you expecting blind people to watch five seasons of Billions to get to the sixth season? And isn’t Billions audio described on Amazon? i thought Amazon shared their AD? They said they did. problem solved? But paramount says they share their audio description… yet if you subscribe to Paramount Plus through Amazon you lose audio description. These things are not adding up. Describe a show from the beginning. People don’t just jump in on the 10th season of Blue bloods, or whatever that show starts at. it certainly isn’t Season 1.

7) Peacock lied.

There was a moment where the peacock rep was allowed to say that Peacock had audio described all NBC, peacock Original, AND Universal content. They have almost NO Universal films described on peacock. If it wasn’t released after the invention of The Cock, it doesn’t have audio description. This is clear from the list on the audio description project. I’ve pointed out before, the absurdity that a lot of their major franchises are being hosted on their own platform with no audio description. Jurassic Park is a great example, but it extends to other big franchises as well, including content from Illumination and Dreamworks, as well as Focus Features that predate Peacock. There are universal titles on Netflix that are older, and they have audio description, but when they move back to Peacock, they won’t migrate their own audio description.

8) It Never Made Sense

Apparently everyone is committed to sharing audio description and making it travel. Well, in the room, we had some of the biggest distributors in existence, so we should have been able to truly get down to the root of the problem. It involves actually tracking a film as it moves, and calling out a representative on a specific film, but audio description obviously doesn’t move, and while everyone was cordial, they don’t call this the streaming wars for nothing. We had Universal (again, which is also illumination, Focus, and Dreamworks, not to mention NBC, Bravo, SyFy, etc.), Warner Bros Discovery, Disney (who now owns 20th century FOX, Fox Searchlight, and has a catalogue of older titles from when Touchstone was a thing, and i believe still has rights to old Mirimax titles), MGM (which is now Amazon owned), and Paramount. These people claim to all be sharing. And they all claim to be asking. Yet, it’s not happening. So, why is that? We were so close to getting that answer.

9) Some Services Are Trying To Get That Surround Sound in There

There was a nice focus on making sure that Surround Sound was available for audio description. Amazon kind of said that’s not possible for its TTS content, though she was optimistic about how technology was advancing.

10) Carl is The Best

Seriously, the patience, the warmth, and the kindness he showed while this was going on, was amazing. He was able to criticize them without making it feel like he was ccriticizing them. But, there’s one shot a year at this, and i think he’s coming off so nice that he could push harder, and no one would feel like they were being pushed harder. I think we should take a snapshot of how many titles everyone has right now, and next year, actually give them the statistic on how much they really did grow. I’d do it, but I’m not the moderator. Nor will I get to speak. This is all I’ve got. A blog that none of them read.

We ahve to be our own advocates all the time, and when everyone is in the room like that, it has to be a conversation about how to advance audio description in a meaningful way, and not self congratulatory. Make real commitments. Address real issues. Apologize for where you lack. I think we could all appreciate a streaming service that is honest about it’s failures and yet still is able to come up with a strategy on how this next year will be different.

Until next year.