In its inaugural year, the Audio Description Awards Gala will be honoring significant achievements that paved the way for creating the Audio Description standard, as well as recognizing the best of television, streaming, and the film industry's commitment to accessible media for blind and low vision audiences in the form of audio description.  This year's honorees have been carefully selected by a diverse group of leaders from the audio description panel who have identified recipients as both audio description content leaders and media industry game changers! The award recipients will receive the newly created ACB Barry Award, in recognition as the best of the best in the field of audio description.  Read the complete Gala announcement.  (Posted Oct 13)

Old Movies, Now Audio Described

Each of the major streaming service offers some really old movies which now have retrofitted audio description tracks.  While some of the tracks are TTS (Text-To-Speech, synthesized voice), most are not.  The oldest movie is from 1928!

We have built a special interface to pull out those old movies for you, first by service, but with options to list by decade.  Visit our new Older Audio Described Movies by Streaming Service page.  (This link is also at the top of the main page and on the Master AD List.)  How far back does your streaming service go?  Here are the oldest films for each service.  (Posted Oct 12)

• Apple TV+:  A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965)
• Disney:  Steamboat Willie (1928)
• HBO Max: The Wizard of Oz (1939)
• Hulu:  The X-Files TV Series( 1993)
• iTunes:  Grand Hotel (1932)
• Paramount+:  The Elephant Man (1980)
• Peacock:  The Sixth Sense (1999)
• Prime Video:  Our Town and His Girl Friday (1940)
• Netflix (not available yet)

FYI:  Streaming Service Costs

Here is a list of subscription streaming services supporting audio description.  Prices are listed low-to-high as of Oct '21, followed by the number of described titles that we list for them on this website.

• Peacock: $0/mo (over 70)
• Apple TV+: $5/mo (over 80)
• Paramount+: $5/mo (over 160)
• Hulu: $6/mo (over 180)
• Disney+: $8/mo (over 760)
• Netflix: $9/mo (over 1700)
• Amazon Prime: $9/mo (over 3000)
• HBO Max: $15/mo (over 360)

All prices above are rounded up by 1 cent!  Typically you can prepay for a year of service and get a couple of months "free."  Since these are base prices, paying more money for some of the services will get you additional simultaneous streams, or higher quality video, or more content, or fewer ads -- or some combination.  (Posted Oct 12)

Remembering Elizabeth Kahn

In 2009-2010, we had a page honoring Audio Description Advocates.  The last one we honored was Elizabeth Kahn of Cary, NC.  Unfortunately, Elizabeth passed away unexpectedly last week after a short illness.  We want to take a moment to honor her contributions to audio description via this updated version of our 2010 comments.

In 1992 when the executive director of Arts Access of Raleigh, NC, invited Elizabeth Kahn to audition to be an audio describer, she knew this was a marriage made in heaven.  Born with a severe vision impairment - fortunately improved with several eye operations - Elizabeth grew up in New York City, the daughter of a music and arts critic.  She got to attend theater, concerts, opera and ballet for free from the best seats in the house.  Unfortunately, even in the best seats she could only take in the big picture; details, like facial expressions and props, were beyond her.  (Read full article...)

Tip:  Turning on AD on an Apple TV

Here's a tip about how to turn on audio description on an Apple TV.  Press the Siri button and say "Switch to English," swipe right once, then press Select. While you can say "Switch to English Audio Description," it won't, just leaving you on English ... so don't waste words!  (Posted Oct 12)