Here are some 2025 highlights from Fred Brack, the ADP webmaster and data wrangler. Thanks, Fred!
Looking back at 2025, I would like to review some of the major accomplishments and changes in the world of audio description as reflected on the ADP Website.
While the major change was the June switchover to our new website managed by the same company responsible for the ACB website, there were months of preparation involved and continued meetings two to three times a week discussing ongoing enhancement plans. A huge amount of time has been spent adding pointers to IMDb (the Internet Movie Database) for as many titles as we could identify, in addition to verifying and adding genres and more in our Master Title database.
Because we were unable to list weekly additions to streaming service titles originally, I began extracting and compiling this data behind the scenes for publication weekly. Later, that data was made available online. We were also able to restore “comments” about titles, including things like any fees beyond subscriptions involved in accessing them. Along the way, we had (and still have) two very experienced screen reader users testing our website, making recommendations for changes.
Four additional streaming providers were added during the year: The Roku Channel, Howdy (a subscription version of The Roku Channel), MGM+, and PBS (streaming, not TV).
Here’s how our providers ended the year. The first number is the year-end 2025 number of described titles offered. This is followed by the increase and the percentage over the year-end 2024 number.
- Apple TV: 306, +47, 18%
- Apple TV Store (iTunes): 2617, +249, 11%
- Disney+: 1280, +41, +3% (but not updated recently)
- Fandango: 922, +285, 45%
- HBOMax: 1175, +54, 5%
- Hulu: +137, 21%
- MGM+: n/a, new this year
- Netflix: +307,11%
- Paramount+: +77, 16%
- Peacock: +72, 21%
- Plex: +16, 59%
- PlutoTV: +4, 5%
- Prime Video: +597, +10%
- ReelAbilities Stream: +26, 54%
- Roku Channel: +9, 12%
- Tubi: +2, 2%
- Spectrum Access: +150, 20%
In analyzing the numbers above, the annual increase gives you some idea how individual services are growing their described content. To the extent that a service focuses on recently released titles, there is a greater likelihood that any given title will have audio description. Overall growth of titles carried will also boost the number, while removal of titles for cost-cutting measures may decrease the number. We certainly must congratulate Fandango at Home for its 45% growth, Plex for its 59% growth, and ReelAbilities Stream for its 54% growth. Fandango is especially impressive given its total described title count of nearly 1,000.
At year-end, we had 13,109 unique titles available with English audio description tracks from Cinema, DVD, Spectrum Access, and over 20 streaming services. This was an increase of 24% over year-end 2024, which was 2% more than 2024 over 2023. Clearly, the number of described titles available is increasing nicely, even though we have a long way to go.
Our Master Title database contains nearly 18,000 titles, meaning there are over 5000 additional titles that have audio description tracks only in non-English languages or they aren’t currently available anywhere in English. For those speaking non-English languages, there were 12,630 titles in 64 languages other than English available (in the USA) with audio description, the most prominent of which was LatAm Spanish at 1888 titles, closely followed by Brazilian Portuguese.
While I, personally, focus on the services listed above, my associate, Timothy Wynn, scans numerous sources of TV listings and uses his network contacts to compile a weekly database of everything that is on TV with audio description. We believe we have the most comprehensive listing of described TV content anywhere, and we have Timothy to thank for that. At the same time, I am grateful to Vicki Vogt of Perkins Library for compiling the list of movies available in Cinemas with audio description.
Please enjoy the ever-increasing number of audio described titles available as updated weekly on our website. You can also help spread the word about the ADP website, especially to newcomers to the blindness community who might not know about the exciting world of audio description.