As Malaysia’s largest entertainment platform, we are committed to creating content for everyone. But unfortunately, not everyone has equal access to them.In Malaysia, over 400,000 people are visually impaired (VI) and since there is no accessible content for the blind, we thought we needed to do something about it.
Solution:
Dari Mata Turun Ke Hati, ironically a story about a visually impaired main character, became the perfect vehicle to address this issue of accessibility. We transformed Dari Mata Turun Ke Hati into Malaysia’s first drama that the visually impaired could “watch with their ears” through an audio description feature describing scenes for them.
Astro collaborated with the Malaysian Association for the Blind and the cast to record nearly 500 minutes of narration for them to enjoy entertainment. To get the word out to Malaysians we let the public first experience how it feels to watch a drama through the eyes of a visually impaired person.
With this drama series, Astro set a new benchmark for accessibility in local entertainment, ensuring that as many communities as possible are included as audiences. And it’s only the beginning, with more titles in store.