[Electronics-talk] producers say yes to audio description on netflix

[J.Cion]

Nice job keep it up.----- Original Message ----- 
From: "The weird writer" <weirdwriter9891 at gmail.com>
To: <electronics-talk at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Monday, August 12, 2013 11:41 AM
Subject: [Electronics-talk] producers say yes to audio description on 
netflix


from the accessible netflix project website.


it’s quite an astonishing feat at what information you find out when you
actually dig deep into something and do a tad bit of investigating. Way
back, Netflix had made a valiant case that it wasn’t up to them to
produce the audio description track for TV shows and movies, and that
they couldn’t legally do anything with the content because they didn’t
hold any of the rights to the content that has audio description tracks,
and that would need to be taken up with the media producers of the TV
show. They are correct, but I wondered if they thought I was going to
drop it at that. I didn’t. I decided to find out for myself just how
much Netflix holds in terms of decisions.

The search, hunting, and getting the right contacts took me forever to
do. First I had to try and find a show that had audio description on TV,
and then I had to check and see if that show was on Netflix. I didn’t
want to do a show that didn’t have audio description on Netflix, nor do
a show that had audio description on TV but wasn’t on Netflix because
then the response would take even longer because they’d have to work out
licensing and the like, and, since they wouldn’t have audio description
then that would add another complication to the mix explaining what
audio description is.

With that in mind, I knew that finding a TV show that had audio
description, and aired on both TV and Netflix was the easiest method to
go that would definitely get me an answer, either way.

Finding that show, though, was easier said than done. With a WordPad
document open and NVDA turned off, I looked through every entry in the
audio description project listing only to find out that a few were on
Netflix, and even then I may have missed some. The research took me an
hour to complete on that end.

Once I had the shows, I needed to find the creator, also known as
producer of the show. That swallowed up an additional two hours of my
time because not everything wasn’t on Wikipedia.

With the shows Family Guy, The Office, Glee, and others in mind, I set
out to find some contact information. This was the hardest of all,
taking up two days to do, after repeat attempts, mind you, but I will
get to that later.

Naturally, I started off by calling corporate offices of networks like
FOX, NBC, etc. in most cases; a generic operator couldn’t transfer me,
nor give me emails, nor give me phone numbers. Some didn’t have it in
their database, others weren’t allowed, and others kept giving me a
generic email, which I didn’t want to, have. I called for a specific
reason and that reason was to get answers.

I tried sounding as business as possible but I guess when you have a
stutter; many don’t take you seriously or think you’ve fallen very high
and hit your head. Some operators cut me off, hanging up on me, leaving
me no choice but to call using the IP relay service where I was hung up
on for yet another day and a half. Usually when I call with the IP relay
service, people on the other end have to speak slower. They’ve disabled
the option for me to place HCO calls, hearing carry over, where I hear
everything the other person is saying. I don’t know why they
discontinued that feature, but now I have to use the IP relay service
just like a deaf person. I’m just a person with a speech disability but
TV station operators think it’s a scam, and they hang up on me, or speak
too fast and then they hang up on me, again.

The third day, I have managed to get someone who’s in charge of Family
guy, out of all 56 calls I have made, I had only one lead and so I
followed up accordingly. She wishes to remain nameless, and she didn’t
give me permission to copy her email, but she said that yes, Seth did
have the rights to the show, hence, he negotiates licenses. I explained
my result with Netflix, and explained my situation via email, as that’s
my best mode of communication. She actually was surprised that it didn’t
have audio description on Netflix, and she wondered why. Just to make
things better on myself, I forwarded her the email sent by Netflix
staff. She immediately responded with a urgency to push this Netflix
woman, and explain that this show is on TV with audio description
already, and make it very clear that the audio description has been
produced, and also make it VERY clear that they’d be more than happy to
license, or anything else to help. So, I sent the Netflix staff this email.

*Hi XXX. This is Robert Kingett again. Recently I sent you an email
about the availability of audio description on instant streaming
services. You pointed out that it’s up to the producers to provide audio
description. There are already shows on TV and movies with audio
description, and who are willing to provide the audio description to
Netflix. Family Guy, a show that is both on Netflix and on TV, offers
described episodes after season 10. Since Family Guy offers audio
description on TV already, I’d like to know how Netflix would work with
the producer of the show to also provide audio description for instant
streaming. Family Guy airs on FOX with audio description. Knowing this,
how can we move forward in regards to providing audio description on
instant streaming? Since the producers are providing audio description
on TV already isn’t it up to Netflix to negotiate audio description on
their systems and services if the audio description is already provided
for other mediums the show airs on?*

The reply that I received was that, in that case, FOX holds the control
over the audio description, not the producers, since the audio
description is produced. FOX airs the show bundled with the audio
description so the producers wouldn’t have any say so. Just to check her
facts, I emailed 13 other Netflix email addresses I had collected. No
response shot into my inbox from any of them, and it has been a week
since the last email. Since FOX airs the show, they have all the rights,
so I’d need to talk to someone at FOX. She didn’t even give me a name of
any sort. I didn’t want to be treated like a joke anymore, so I
contacted my Family Guy contact who told me that she’d look, and dig,
and find out who I’d need to speak to and she promised that she would
give me a direct contact, even number. So, I guess now we just wait on
the big reveal. I don’t know when that will happen but I’m sure it won’t
be far off before I have a definitive answer. At least someone is taking
me seriously, but with very few leads, the worry is mounting. Will my
efforts be in vein? I hope not. I do wish though, that I had someone
helping me make these calls. People really don’t like IP relay but what
other options do I have?

The good news, we’ve learned something, the bad, we need to learn more
about the vast world of licensing. We will keep looking, however.


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