NEW YORK—Paramount Global and The Described and Captioned Media Program (DCMP) have announced a partnership that ensures hundreds of hours of Nickelodeon's hit animated and live-action series will be accessible to families with young viewers and students with disabilities.
The multi-year agreement commences with several Nickelodeon series, including “Bossy Bear”, “Tiny Chef Show”, “Blues Clues & You!” and “Santiago of the Seas” and will include distribution via DCMP's free streaming services for families and schools. Additional Nickelodeon series will be made available on DCMP's services on a rolling basis through 2029.
DCMP is providing audio description through a Television Access grant funded by the U.S. Department of Education. The purpose of the grant is to improve results for children with disabilities through support for the addition of audio description to widely available programs with educational value.
The Nickelodeon series will air and stream with captions and audio description. Audio description is a secondary audio track with additional narration that provides access to key visual elements of a video for persons who are blind, without interfering with the audio or dialogue.
"This opportunity enables Paramount Global to expand the reach and accessibility of our content to the DCMP audience, which includes young viewers and their families, through added audio description on Nickelodeon. The impact and nature of this partnership is something that the DCMP and our Paramount team are proud of," said Mark Turits, vice-president of captioning and audio description, Paramount Global Access Services.
"We are proud to be partnering with Paramount Global to make important programming accessible for children who are blind and visually impaired," said DCMP CTO Kyle Sisk. "Not only will more high-quality television content be accessible to the public, but teachers and families will benefit from DCMP's targeted distribution to schools."
