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Audio Description

Imagine watching the television event of the year - an award winning drama or documentary - and at the key moment the picture breaks down. You still have the sound but as no-one is speaking, you need the pictures to make sense of what's happening. With a narrator describing the missing pictures you would be able to keep up with the plot.

Almost all blind and partially sighted people regularly watch television and like their fellow sighted citizens they watch for entertainment, information and for company. However they are often frustrated at not being able to interpret visual information that is not described or narrated.

Around two million people in the UK have a sight problem that cannot be corrected by wearing glasses. There is a growing sense of injustice and frustration that they do not have access to services which sighted people enjoy and which blind and partially sighted people in the USA, for example, have enjoyed for years. Paying half the television license fee does not compensate for not being able to follow your favourite detective series or soap without losing the plot.

There are very easy ways of improving the experience, namely audio description and the ability to manipulate text. Not only does the technology exist, but the government has even acknowledged their importance and has legislated for some programmes to be audio described.

An Example of Audio Decsription

"The Wizard of Oz" is a timeless classic with amazing scenery and characters. The audio described version brings the magic of Dorothy's adventure with her red shoes, the Tin Man, Lion and Scarecrow to people with sight problems.

Do you remember how the film starts in black and white and how Dorothy's house is whirled into the air during the cyclone? Whilst the house is spinning in the sky, Dorothy sees lots of characters sailing past the window. The house finally comes to a rest in the land over the rainbow and the film turns into full colour.

If you couldn't see the action on screen during the video you would have had no idea what was happening, there would have been bumps and cries and you would only have the music to tell you what was happening. You also wouldn't know what Dorothy saw once she opened the door.

But the audio described version would have told you that Dorothy and Toto were dumbfounded as trees, a chicken coop and an old lady knitting whizzed past the window of the spinning house. The audio described version also tells you what happens once Dorothy opens the door after the house has landed.

“Dorothy peeps round the door as she opens it and she steps out into a world of colour. She gazes in wonder, as she steps out onto a yellow brick path, towards an ornamental bridge, across a bright blue lily pond, festooned on all sides by beds of fantastical, shiny multi-colourful hollyhock-like flowers, and in the background an emerald green meadow against a backdrop of pink, craggy rocks. “

And you understand why Dorothy exclaims; 'I don't think we're in Kansas anymore.'

Dorothy in “The Wizard of Oz” © 2001 Turner Entertainment Co. and Warner Home Video an AOL Time Warner Co.

Current UK Programmes

Currently around 6% of Digital TV programming in the UK has Audio Description content, although this is due to rise to 10% by 2009. Until now, there has been no commercially available equipment that is capable of decoding the extra audio description data and so the effort that the major channel providers have put into describing their programmes has largely been wasted.

With the advent of DigiTV however, this will all change as people can now access the audio description content with the simple push of a button.

You can find audio description content on most Soaps including Eastenders, Coronation Street and Emmerdale, plus dramas such as Holby City. Channel five is broadcasting Charlie's Angels in the mid-afternoon with audio description and BBC2, BBC Four, CBBC, CBeebies and UK History are all providing a mix of supported programming throughout the day.

You can find a list of programmes that are currently transmitted using Audio Description here

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