TORONTO – Accessible Media Inc. (AMI)’s coverage of the Toronto Blue Jays’ Canada Day matchup against the Cleveland Indians garnered more than 20,000 viewers per minute, making it one of AMI-tv’s highest ranking live described events.
Quoting Numeris data, AMI-tv said that it recorded AMA 2+ of 20.4 over the 6.5 hour game, with ratings peaking at 26.0 between 3:00 – 3:30 PM ET, marking the broadcast as the highest Jays game to date.
AMI's director of programming Brian Perdue said that AMI-tv usually averages audiences closer to 7.0 in a 24 hour period, and suggested that southern Ontario’s stormy weather that day worked in its favour.
“Ratings of 20.4 over a six hour period was astounding”, he told Cartt.ca. “This really shows that our audience doesn’t want to just listen to the game on radio, they want to enjoy the game's broadcast in the same way as other Canadians. We’re glad that it was a rainy day because our ratings just ‘poured’ in.”
AMI-tv is presenting 15 Blue Jays games throughout the 2016 season with live described video, thanks to a partnership between Accessible Media and the Rogers-owned Jays that began in 2012. The described video is provided in studio at AMI by veteran sports commentators including Jim Van Horne, Sam Cosentino, Norma Wick and Rob Simpson.
The broadcaster is also planning to live describe CBC’s coverage of the Rio 2016 Paralympics Games starting with the opening ceremonies on September 7.
