Type Non-profit Founded 1989 Website AMI | Industry Media Headquarters Toronto, Ontario | |
Products Broadcasting, Post-Production | ||
Accessible Media Inc. (AMI) is a Canadian non-profit media organization. AMI specializes in media for the blind, visually impaired, deaf and hearing impaired.
Contents
History
AMI was established in 1989 as the National Broadcast Reading Service (NBRS) on the Canadian Parliament's Standing Committee of the Status of Disabled Persons. The committee's report, "No News is Bad News," stated that vision- and print-restricted Canadians must have equal access to published news and information.
In 1990, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) granted NBRS a licence for VoicePrint— a radio reading service; the service launched on December 1 that year. In 1995, NBRS launched AudioVision Canada to supply described video services to various film and television projects. In July 2007, the CRTC granted NBRS's licence application for The Accessible Channel, a national specialty channel which would air all of its programming with described video and closed captioning. The channel would launch in 2009.
To reflect its expansion beyond VoicePrint with the launch of The Accessible Channel, the National Broadcast Reading Service was renamed Accessible Media Inc. (AMI) in 2010. On January 30, 2012, as part of an effort to unify AMI's services under one brand for easier cross-promotion, TAC was renamed AMI-tv. VoicePrint followed suit on March 5, 2012, becoming AMI-audio. On June 21, 2012, Accessible Media launched the DV Guide—an online TV listings service that highlights programming across Canadian broadcasters which carry audio descriptions.
Services
AMI operates three main broadcasting services, all of which must be carried on the basic tier of all digital television services in the country.
AMI also operates AudioVision Canada, a company which provides audio description services for other film and television projects, and Canada 360, a radio news service distributed by Sirius XM.