This is an update originally posted on a section of my monthly summary on my blog Rock For Disability:
I’ve had a lot of luck and bad luck with accessing audio description this month.
I was excited to find out the new series of Waterloo Roadwould be airing in January. I watched the first episode live on the 3rd of January, which was fab. It then said you could watch the rest of the series on BBC iPlayer.
I went onto the streaming service only to discover that none of the other episodes had audio description available.
Why is it that sighted people can binge-watch series at their leisure and yet blind and visually impaired people have to wait each week for a new episode with audio description?
Plus, why isn’t the rest of the Waterloo Road series from previous years not audio described? I tweeted the streaming service and the show twice and sent a formal complaint to the BBC to raise this issue.
This was their first response:
“I understand you are asking us about audio description being available on Waterloo Road on iPlayer, for the new series and the old. Hopefully, I can help.
AD only gets added once it’s been broadcast. Please check out all the upcoming broadcasts to see when the AD will be added for each episode on the programme page.
Once they are available in AD they will be available for the same length of time as the non-accessible version, for example, if the non-accessible version was available for 30 days, the AD version will be available for 30 days from their broadcast date. This can mean the non-accessible version usually expires first leaving only the AD version available on iPlayer.
The reason the older series of Waterloo Road don’t have AD is because they have been on iPlayer, expired and then have come straight onto iPlayer without being broadcast on TV.”
I replied saying this is still unfair and mentioned that other new series such as His Dark Materials did have AD on iPlayer before each episode was broadcast on TV. So, why can’t all new series have AD available straight on iPlayer? I requested to speak to someone at the BBC who works in the accessibility team.
Their second response simply said:
“Due to how subtitles and audio description are delivered via the BBC’s broadcasting pipeline, we’re not able to make AD available for new episodes until their TV broadcast.
Some box sets/day-one drops are available on iPlayer from day one with AD attached, however, this varies from series to series based on how they are delivered.
Unfortunately, we can’t give you a contact for our Accessibility team, however, you can view the BBC accessibility policies [online]”
I strongly feel this is not good enough and I’m disappointed the BBC do not want to work or cooperate with me to resolve this. I understand this issue can’t be fully fixed overnight but changes are needed to provide full access to all audiences fairly and equally.
I found the same issue with the new series of Bad Education,where you can stream the full series on iPlayer but have to wait each week for audio description.
If you, or someone you know, works for the BBC, another TV channel or a production company and could put me in touch with their accessibility teams to discuss the issues of accessing audio description, I’d really appreciate it.
On the plus side, I finally found The Vampire Diaries with audio description on Amazon Prime. I’ve been wanting to watch it for years but never got the chance until now because there was no audio description available.
In the meantime, my campaign for audio description has continued throughout January 2023 and the petition has now gained a total of 3662 signatures, which is incredible!
But I’m eager to reach thousands more. The more signatures we get, the more likely changes will be made within the TV and film industries. Please, please, PLEASE continue to sign & share my petition!