Movistar TV for deaf and blind
June 15, 2016
From David Del Valle in Madrid
Telefónica has made its pay-TV platform Movistar TV available to all Spanish people with sensory disabilities through its service Movistar + 5S.
The company will invest over €1 million annually to provide its content using audio description, subtitles and sign language to allow deaf and blind people to enjoy the pay TV platform for the first time.
To access this new service – free and compatible with IOS and Android operating systems- Movistar customers have to download the Movistar + 5S application and the connected device will allow them to have access to the requested TV content.
The app will enable deaf people to choose between subtitles on their smartphone or tablet and a LSE interpreter on screen with sign language while watching a film or TV series. Blind people will be able to listen to the audio description of the film through a smartphone or tablet connected to headphones.
Initially, the service has been launched with over one hundred films and series available, with titles as prominent as’ Mad Max ‘,’ 8 Catalan surnames’ ‘The Minions’,’ Zootropolis’, ‘Spotlight’, ‘Penny Dreadful ‘,’ Outlander ‘or’ Better Call Saul ‘. The aim is to include 35 monthly movie premieres and 70 episodes of series.
At present almost 4 million people with disabilities in Spain, some 10 per cent of the Spanish population – of which about half have any sensory disabilities.
The aim for Movistar + 5S is to become the first TV platform fully accessible content. To achieve this, Movistar + has collaborated last year with WhatsCine and the Carlos III University to adapt the application to the needs of Telefonica, as well as the main associations of disability, which have helped the company to understand the needs of the group and find the best solutions for all the work of interpretation in record time.