A timeline of audio description
- 1910s in the UK
- 1920s in the US
- 1940s in Spain
- 1960s in the US
- 1970s-80s in the US
- 1990s in the US
- Australia
The 1910s in the UK
According to the National Institute for the Blind’s journal, The Beacon, in January 1917 Lady Eleanor Waterlow provided vision impaired inhabitants at St Dunstan’s Home for the Blind in Brighton, East Sussex in the UK with live audio description for a film titled “With Captain Scott in the Antarctic.”
Perhaps Britain’s first audio describer of cinema, Lady Waterlow had a “happy way of creating mental pictures by flashes of suggestive description interjected at appropriate moments.”
Perhaps Britain’s first audio describer of cinema, Lady Waterlow had a “happy way of creating mental pictures by flashes of suggestive description interjected at appropriate moments.”
This article is significant because:
Anecdotal accounts of one-to-one description by relatives and friends abound, but this is the first known record of a description delivered to an audience of blind listeners. What prompted Eleanor to do it and whether she continued her experiments in ‘visualisation’ needs further investigation.
Mary Plackett (2014). Publications Editor of the Audio Description Association.
Full text of the original 1917 article (cited in the Audio Description Association Newsletter, Issue 9, Winter 2014) is as follows:
BLIND SOLDIERS “SEE” A CINEMA SHOW
Lady Earnest Waterlow has marked a further stage in the work she has undertaken of helping the blind soldiers of St Dunstan’s to visualise entertainments that appeal only to sight. Experiments at theatrical performances had already met with success, through the quickness of the patients in recognising the voices and even the footsteps of the players. A cinematographic show would seem less promising material, yet the sightless men who were taken to Mr. H. G. Ponting’s cinematographic lecture, “With Captain Scott in the Antarctic,” at the Philharmonic Hall on Saturday, declared it to be the most interesting of all. It was not only that the adventurous and tragic story enchained their attention, but they carried away a series of lively impressions of the scenes and incidents represented on the screen. This was brought about by Lady Waterlow’s happy way of creating mental pictures by flashes of suggestive description interjected at appropriate moments. When the lecturer referred to the wonders of the Antarctic – the Great Ice Barrier, the glow of the midnight sun, the absorbing animal life, and the heroic personnel of the fated expedition – the listeners were not left in any doubt as to the appearences recorded, for Lady Waterlow was ready with the vivid words that tersely emphasised what was salient and characteristic, and stimulated the imagination to fill up the picture.
The Beacon, January 1917.
Many thanks to Mary Plackett for contacting us and sharing this information.
The 1920s in the US
One of the earliest records of audio description in history was located by Katie Ellis during research for this website.
A short article in The New York Times newspaper published on August 28th, 1929, reports that one hundred people attended an audio described film at the Theatre Moderne.
The full text is transcribed below:
Blind and Deaf At Movie.
One Hundred Applaud Talking Film at Special Showing.
More than 100 members of the New York Association for the Blind and the New York League for the Hard of Hearing attended a special performance of the talking motion picture “Bulldog Drummond” last night at the Theatre Moderne, in the Chanin Building.
An interlocutor explained the visual sequences for the blind when the dialogue was momentarily halted. Those without eyesight seemed to enjoy the performance, especially the humorous parts, and there was prolonged applause at the end of the film.
This performance is probably the first talking picture ever shown especially for the blind. Several theatres in and about New York have sound magnifying apparatus attached to the seats for the use of the hard of hearing during a dialogue picture. But to date no provisions have been made for “readers” to help the blind “see” a film.
The New York Times
Published August 28, 1929
Copyright: The New York Times.
The 1940s in Spain
During the 1940s in Spain, Gerardo Esteban, a radio presenter, began narrating films on Spain’s national radio station Radio Nacional de España. The service which ran until the 1950s was described as offering ‘an important space in prime-time radio programming […] until the birth of television’ (Orero, 2007, p. 112). While it was targeted specifically towards blind and vision impaired audiences, film studios were charged a fee for the description as the radio station considered it a form of free advertising. As discussed earlier, a radio facilitated audio description service did not appear in Australia until the 1980s and 1990s and by the end of the century was no longer available.
1960s in the US
Communities of Star Trek fans began to share AD versions of the original television show on cassette tape.
1970s- 1980s in the US
Academic Gregory Frazier began working on the concept of AD theatre. He founded AudioVision in 1972 to explore making media and live performances more accessible to people who are blind and vision impaired (DCMP, 2017). His 1975 Master’s thesis, The autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman: An all-audio adaptation of the teleplay for the blind and visually handicapped, was an AD adaptation of the television–film drama The autobiography of Miss Jane Pitman.
Margaret Pfanstiehl worked with both theatre and public television officials to develop technology to facilitate the provision of AD to audiences who were blind or vision impaired. Just as Gerardo Esteban had in 1940s Spain, Pfanstiehl utilised a cross-technology AD simulcast using radio, albeit this time pared with television rather than cinema, of the PBS show American playhouse (Lewis, 2017). This radio–television simulcast arrangement was also used in Europe throughout the 1990s. Pfanstiehl was awarded an Emmy in 1990 for her work with the Metropolitan Washington Ear Reading Service to bring AD to television.
1990s in the US
Margaret Pfanstiehl’s The Metropolitan Washington Ear Reading Service, Gregory Frazier’s AudioVision Institute, James Stovall’s Narrative Television Network and Barry Cronin and Laurie Everett from PBS/WGBH each received Emmys for their work in the areas of audio description on television.
Throughout the 1990s, they continued to develop initiatives, conferences and best practice guidelines for the provision of AD while offering AD movies, television shows and theatre performances.
These guidelines and policy changes are now advancing the provision of AD in many countries.
Australia
There are historical examples of community led audio description television services simulcast with radio during the 1980s and 1990s in Australia.
In 1983 the community radio station 3RPH in Melbourne offered audio description of the international tennis competition Wimbledon as an extension to the television coverage. Then during the 1990s 3RPH provided descriptions of the popular Australian television dramas Water Rats, The Man From Snowy River and Law of the Lands (Simpson, 1999, p. 38). However, the service was viewed as being ‘at the expense of other content’ (Simpson, 1999, p. 5) and was limited to Melbourne audiences.
The Audio Description Working Group convened by the Federal government throughout 2017 were tasked with exploring options for the delivery of AD on Australian television.
The terms of reference however encouraged the group to consider ‘alternatives to legislated requirements to provide AD services’.
Until 2020, Australian was the only English Speaking nation in the OECD not to offer audio description on television.
People who are blind and vision impaired campaigned to change this for decades, as Emma Bennison, CEO of Blind Citizens Australia, explains:
“Blind Citizens Australia and other organisations across the blindness sector have been advocating for twenty years to get an AD service on Australian television. We have shown extraordinary patience and a willingness to work collaboratively with Government through the various trials and consultation processes, but twenty years is too long, and we will no longer allow Governments to ignore us.”
Audio description trials took place on the ABC in 2010 and iView in 2015, and in June 2020, following an initial A$2 million funding injective from the federal government, national broadcasters ABC and SBS introduced audio description to their broadcast content. In 2023, some of this content became available for asynchronous catch-up on the channels’ online catch-up platforms. Commercial stations are yet to provide the service in Australia. However, there are regulations in place to encourage screen producers to create audio description tracks.