ITV and Guinness are partnering to trial live descriptive audio commentary for the Guinness Six Nations during England vs Wales on 10 February and England vs Ireland on 9 March.
As part of the plan, Guinness has enlisted commentators Danielle Waterman (Guinness ambassador), Nick Heath (rugby commentator) and Dave Rogers (rugby commentator and trained audio describer).
It can be accessed by turning on the audio description function from your TV.
As well as improving broadcast accessibility, Guinness has worked with Creative Equals to train stadium staff in the skills needed to support disabled and neurodivergent fans.
The brand will also work to upweight sensory rooms and fan resources across Twickenham, Scottish Gas Murrayfield and Principality, to help neurodivergent fans if they feel overwhelmed on game day.
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It follows on from research which revealed that almost a quarter of the UK population have a disability, and one in five are neurodiverse.
In addition, 71% of the blind and visually impaired community engage with sport through TV and radio but aren’t able to fully experience the game at home with standard commentary and subtitles.
“Earlier this year, Guinness announced its Title Partnership of the Guinness Women’s and Men’s Six nations, but our commitment to create a better society through diversity and inclusion has only just begun,” said Guinness marketing director Anna MacDonald.
ITV commercial director of commercial sales and partnerships Mark Trinder said: “The Guinness Six Nations is a huge sporting and broadcasting event and at ITV we want to make sure our coverage is as accessible as possible to as big an audience as possible”.
RNIB media, culture and immersive technologies senior manager Sonali Rai said: “It is really encouraging to see ITV and Guinness taking the steps to include live descriptive commentary for this weekend’s coverage of the Six Nations.”
“Simple steps like these make a huge difference to blind and partially sighted people — it breaks down a huge barrier that would otherwise prevent them from enjoying the game in the same way as their sighted peers.”
“We’re delighted ITV and Guinness have taken this step and look forward to hearing how people with sight loss enjoyed the England vs Wales game at the weekend”.
1 Comment. Leave new
Great but how do you enable this that would have been really useful information for a blind person
Dreadful marketing