I learned how to properly spell this companies name. that’s where I’m at.
If I told you that if someone were to ask me which company provides consistently the worst audio description, and the answer was ViTac, does that give you pause? Do you actually care about the quality of audio description you produce?
I’ve seen you drag some ABC shows into the mud of mediocrity, but nothing you do is quite as functionally awful as The Trators. While your writer might occasionally get some decent description in from time to time, it is so bad I know other people have complained. I know this, because they’ve commented openly on my blog. One person searched for answers to why the audio description on The Traitors was abysmal, and found one of my blogs from last year. Season 2 audio description. Now, we’re really lowering that bar.
I now hold these truths to be self evident:
- ViTac does not believe in running a program by anyone in a QC position.
- 2) The Traitors is not narrated by a human.
- 3) They don’t care.
I mentioned in my small screen diaries two episodes ago, when we had Bob H still with us, that there was a moment that the narrator read off Bo B, like we suddenly gained a new player named Bo (pronounce like Beau) whose last name initial was B. Of course, it was a typo, and the narrator wasn’t smart enough to figure this out. At the time I used it as a learning tool to empower other narrators to please question something when you come across a likely typo. However, the bland voice narrating the Traitors cannot possibly be human. because this week, we tripped and fell into the fuck me hall of fame.
You actually sent out a professional audio description track, to Peacock, for mass consumption, because no one does a QC pass, where your fake ass voice read the word “agape” like it rhymes with “agave”. I don’t even know how to type that so my screen reader could read that out for you. You just have to ask yourself how the word agape could rhyme with agave. It is exactly like agave, but instead of the V, it was still the P. That’s not even a word. It is just one more example of how little effort is put into this audio description.
If you aren’t going to bother to put together competent audio description, please just pass the work on to companies that take this seriously. this is my accessibility. If I kept ordering white canes, and they kept coming in crooked or broken, I’d be having some words with my cane company. I need this accessibility. You just see it as a paycheck. You can fart out the worst possible audio description with the least amount of effort. You cut corners by offering TTS, and also not quality checking your product. Someone wrote that, asked a computer to speak it, and then mailed it to Peacock.
Self respecting audio description professionals either need to overrun your company and force it to have quality standards, or they should avoid you like the plague, because you are the equivalent of Peacock just asking OpenAI to do their audio description. There’s no love for the craft. There’s no care here about whether or not the blind audience is receiving a quality accessibility feature.
So, my mouth is agape. It has been agape all morning. Not however your AI thinks that word is pronounced, but the actual way. When you tip your hat, it becomes really obvious. There’ss a saying that when someone shows you who they are, believe them.
So, my open letter to you is to either get out of the game, or get into it and actually provide real, substantial, accessibility. Do not cut the cheapest corners and leave us with a computer that can’t even pronounce a word correctly, and its mistakes can’t be caught because NO ONE watched this episode with the track after it was made. And if they did, fire them. fire your QC. that is two episodes this season with a glaringly obvious mistake. I’m not talking about how much audio description you’ve written, or if you caught every character who enters a room. there was never a person named Beau on the show, and that is not how the word agape is pronounced.
In true Traitors fashion, the round table has spoken, and you received the most votes and will be eliminated. The question is now… are you a faithful or a traitor?
