NBCUniversal Enhances Accessibility for Its Coverage of the Olympic Games Paris 2024

NBCUniversal’s coverage of the Olympic Games Paris 2024 will be accessible to more viewers of all abilities than ever before, providing the excitement of the Olympic and Paralympic Games with enhanced closed captioning, extended audio description, and improved digital content accessibility.

Closed captioning, which provides text of the coverage audio for viewers who are Deaf or hard of hearing, will be available for all Olympic and Paralympic events airing across NBCU’s broadcast and cable networks. NBCUniversal will also provide closed captioning for all digital livestreams with commentary across Peacock, NBCSports.com and the NBC Sports app.

More audio description services – interspersing broadcast audio with skilled voices describing Olympic and Paralympic scenes and context – will be available for viewers who are blind or visually impaired for the Paris Olympics than any previous Games. All coverage on NBC, including daytime, primetime, and late night, and the Gold Zone whip-around show on Peacock, will feature audio description provided by Descriptive Video Works. In a first for a U.S. broadcaster, audio description services for NBC coverage will be provided in stereo, enhancing the quality of sound for viewers.

For the Paralympic Games, NBC Sports will provide live audio description for all broadcast and cable programming, including those aired outside primetime hours, as well as on all simulstreams. 

Additionally, improved web content accessibility, including keyboard navigation, color contrast and support for screen readers, will be available on NBCOlympics.com, NBC.com, the NBC Sports app.  Livestreams and replays which offer audio description will have English audio description as a language choice within the players on these digital platforms. To easily find all events with audio description, click here.

To contact NBCUniversal about issues related to closed captions, please send an email to [email protected].  For audio description issues, email [email protected]

All of this audio description and closed captioning will be available to Comcast Xfinity customers who experience the Games on the Xfinity X1 platform, including on the live Olympic Games coverage delivered in 4K, on Xfinity Stream, and on Xfinity Flex.

“For over a decade, Comcast has been committed to making the moments that matter accessible to everyone, and NBCUniversal’s enhanced accessibility features for this year’s Olympic and Paralympic Games are a part of this mission,” said Tom Wlodkowski, Vice President of Accessibility at Comcast. “NBCUniversal’s team approached these features with an inclusive lens, to ensure that the enhancements meet the needs of our customers. As a user of the audio description features myself, I could not be more excited to share in the joy that the Paris Olympics will bring.”

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