The American Council of the Blind (ACB) and its Audio Description Project (ADP) invite audiences to experience the 6th Annual Audio Description Awards Gala, airing Thursday, November 12, 2026, at 7:30 p.m. ET — a star-studded celebration honoring excellence and innovation in audio description across genres and platforms.

The Gala recognizes the creators and innovators transforming how audiences engage with entertainment and information through audio description (AD). Since its debut in 2021, the event has featured legendary guests, including Stevie Wonder, Jason Momoa, and Kathy Bates, as well as accomplished presenters, many of whom are on the blindness spectrum.

This year’s show is hosted by Marilee Talkington and Ben Mehl, two talented performers with numerous stage and screen credits. Together, they will welcome presenters across entertainment and media to applaud the year’s leading achievements in Innovation, Popular Entertainment, Writing, Voicing, Education, International Media, Spanish Media (USA), Live Events, Talent Promotion, and Gaming. Marilee and Ben will also announce the winners of the AD People’s Choice Awards.

Presenters and special guests include actors, authors, advocates, and influencers, such as: Alie B. Gorrie, Dr. Amy Kavanagh, Chad Allen, David Clarke OBE, Dr. Conchita Hernandez Legorreta, Hannah Weymouth, Ren Leach, and many more.

The 2026 Audio Description Awards Gala exemplifies how creativity and technology can merge to make the arts more accessible. The broadcast will include open captions, open AD, American Sign Language interpretation, and Spanish dubbing, captions, and AD, ensuring a fully inclusive experience.

Access the broadcast on:

• ACB Media 1 (English) andACB Media 8 (Spanish)
• ACB’s YouTube channel
• ACB Community watch party and after party on Zoom and Clubhouse
• ADAwardsGala.org
• Peacock, courtesy NBCUniversal (subscription required; through December 31, 2026)

Learn more at ADAwardsGala.org. To support ADP’s advocacy, please click here and make a donation today.

• ACB Media 1 (English) and ACB Media 8 (Spanish)
• ACB’s YouTube channel
• ACB Community watch party and after party on Zoom and Clubhouse
• ADAwardsGala.org
• Peacock, courtesy NBCUniversal (subscription required; through December 31, 2026).

Reprinted from ACB's Dots & Dashes, issued November 2, 2026.

We’re proud to announce that on Wednesday, October 28th, ACB received the 2026 Navigator Award from the American Printing House for the Blind (APH)!

The Navigator Award recognizes collaborative efforts to remove barriers and create opportunities for people who are blind. APH is honoring ACB for its longstanding advocacy for audio description and its work to make this important access feature more widely available across entertainment and educational programming.

From advocating for legislative and regulatory action beginning in the early 1990s to helping advance audio description requirements in the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act, ACB has worked for decades to expand access to described programming. APH also recognized ACB’s role in providing information about described programs, advancing the quality of audio description, and recognizing leaders in the field.

ACB's Executive Director Scott Thornhill and Immediate Past President Kim Charlson accepted the award during APH’s Annual Meeting at the Downtown Louisville Marriott in Louisville, Kentucky.

We’re honored to receive this recognition and grateful to APH for highlighting the importance of audio description and the work that has helped make it an increasingly common part of accessible entertainment and education.

We also want to thank APH for the important work it does every day to expand access to information and educational opportunities for people who are blind or have low vision. APH has been a valued partner of ACB, and we’re grateful for our shared commitment to creating greater access and opportunity.

In response to the high volume of audio description consumer feedback, the Audio Description Project decided to create a survey that could get more formal data to share with the AD community and providers.

The ADP completed the survey design in the spring of 2026. We then partnered with Professor Nicole Rivers of Suffolk University. She has worked with the ADP in the past and is well known for her experience with developing, compiling, and analyzing survey data. Professor Rivers and her team launched the survey in July and closed it at the end of August 2026. The following report, linked below, provides a summary of data from that survey.

We invite anyone to look at the executive summary's findings, here: https://adp.acb.org/american-council-blind-audio-description-project-streaming-accessibility-survey-executive-summary

The American Council of the Blind’s Audio Description Project (ADP) and the Described and Captioned Media Program (DCMP) are co-sponsoring the Benefits of Audio Description in Education (BADIE), an essay contest for young people ages 7 to 21 who are on the blindness spectrum. 

Students choose an audio-described film or video from the more than 6,000 educational titles available on the DCMP website. They then write an evaluation of its audio description, commenting on the extent to which the description enhanced or detracted from their experience. Within each of four age-based categories, contest winners receive first, second, and third place prizes. One overall grand prize winner is awarded an iPad mini and the chance to read the winning essay at the American Council of the Blind's National Conference and Convention. Teachers of first place winners also receive prizes. 

To access guidelines and prize information, learn how audio description is created, and get tips for writing a strong review, visit the BADIE website.

The deadline for contest entries is March 15, 2027. Winners will be notified in April.

Matt Kaplowitz, CEO of Bridge Multimedia, was recently recognized by the FCC as an accessibility innovator when he was presented with their 2026 Chairman’s Award for Advancement in Accessibility. The FCC commended his "distinguished career advancing innovation in media accessibility."

The press release from Bridge Multimedia notes that under Matt's direction, Bridge has developed a strong relationship with the FCC and accessibility-related projects, including serving on the FCC’s Internet Protocol Closed Caption Subcommittee Workgroup, which was "tasked with identifying expectations for streaming closed captions." Matt is also an active member of ACB's Audio Description Project Media Committee and received the AD Visionary Award at the 2025 ADP Awards Gala.

Congratulations to Matt and fellow 2026 honorees Zainab Alkebsi, disability advocate and Chief Policy Officer at Deaf Equity,, Stephen Ewell, Executive Director of the CTA Foundation, and Fred Moltz, Chief Accessibility Officer at Verizon. The ADP commends Matt, Zainab, Steve, and Fred for helping to elevate the conversation around how emerging broadcast technology can create more accessible, personalized, and inclusive experiences for everyone.

To read the full press release, visit the Bridge Multimedia site.

To read the announcement from the FCC and access a recording of the celebration, visit the FCC site.

Halloween is right around the corner, and if you like the horror genre, we remind you that you can find movies in that genre from whatever streaming services you subscribe to or order from by specifying both the provider name(s) and the horror genre in the Filter section of our Film and Series Directory. For example, here’s the link that is generated when you select the horror genre for all providers:

https://adp.acb.org/adp-search?release_year=&field_genre_target_id%5B8%5D=8

If you only subscribe to specific streaming services, you can narrow the results by selecting your favorites in the Provider filters and then selecting the Apply Filters button. If you'd like to come back to our selection of horror movies at a later time, you can bookmark the above link with the horror genre filter applied. Any new horror titles will be added to that page.

It's almost impossible to spend time on social media or even the internet in general without encountering videos. As Ka Li, an accessibility and usability consultant specializing in digital access and tactile media, points out in a recent blog post, many of the millions of videos uploaded every day have enough spoken words to be considered accessible to blind and low-vision users. But there are also plenty of videos that would benefit from audio description. Read Li's article, "An Overlooked Way to Make YouTube Videos More Accessible," for tips on using apps and AI to add audio description when the content creator hasn't.