The Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Paralympic Games may have finished 10 days ago, and as well as looking back at the action on the slopes and ice, our editor Emma Purcell is keen to review the accessibility on Channel 4, and decide if its coverage of the Games met expectations for viewers with disabilities across the UK.
As a passionate campaigner for accessibility, I was very intrigued to see how Channel 4 would provide accessible features, including subtitles, British Sign Language (BSL) and audio description across the coverage of the Winter Paralympics.
When announcing the presenting lineup for Milano Cortina 2026, Channel 4 also delved into the ways in which people can watch with accessibility features. This included all content being subtitled, live broadcast coverage having live audio description available from 10:30am each day, and the daily highlights programme featuring live BSL translation. Plus, the Opening and Closing Ceremonies were to be simulcast on 4seven and Channel 4 Streaming with BSL and an open descriptive commentary.
From the amount I saw of the coverage and my overall understanding, I’m pleased to say all of these accessibility features were included throughout the Winter Paralympics. I did not doubt that these services would not be fulfilled following Channel 4’s accessible coverage of the Paris 2024 summer Paralympics.
However, before, during and after the Winter Paralympics, I found issues and concerns regarding the quality and quantity of the accessibility on Channel 4.
As a visually impaired person, I find audio description a vital tool when accessing television programs and films and have been continuously campaigning to make it be available on more platforms for several years.
Therefore, a majority of my review of accessibility on Channel 4 will be focused on audio description and on the use of Apple devices and Samsung Smart TV to access the Paralympic coverage across linear TV, the Channel 4 Sport YouTube channel and the Channel 4 streaming service.
This is mostly based on my own experiences, and other people who use audio description may have different opinions on the quality and quantity available on Channel 4.
Barriers to accessing live audio description across different devices during the 2026 Winter Paralympics on Channel 4
My first concern I had, before the Games even began, was the fact that the live audio description each day from 10:30am would only be available on linear TV. This is totally fine if you have easy access to terrestrial television, but as this was broadcast during the daytime, when a lot of people would be working or travelling, they could not access the service via their smartphone or tablet via the streaming service.
In my case, although I do work from home, my smart TV is located in my lounge, and I work in my study where my computer and iPad are set up, and my desk for work. My hope was still to stream it live from my iPad with the audio description, but as mentioned above, this was not possible on the Channel 4 streaming app when it’s live.
On the first full day of sporting action, I did consider trying to watch it on catch-up a couple of hours later with the audio description available, but this still wasn’t an option. I later found out that the audio description for the main broadcast would only be available on catch-up 24 hours later. This doesn’t bother me so much with the TV series or box set, but with a nine-day sporting event where events will be happening constantly each day, I didn’t feel it was right that I had to wait 24 hours to catch up on the previous day’s events, especially when most results will be shown across the news and social media.
Balancing commentary and audio description in sports coverage
On the times I did manage to watch some of the coverage with the Live audio description, I was rather disappointed in the quality and quantity of it. Because the audio description was playing alongside the commentators, there weren’t many gaps for the describers to share anything while the commentators were talking. On some occasions, the commentators and describers were talking over each other, which made it more confusing.
Also, some of the things that describers were sharing I found weren’t really irrelevant to what we wanted to know. For instance, with a lot of the skiing, they kept sharing the colour of their outfits, but to be honest, I wasn’t really bothered by what colours they were wearing, I just wanted to know how fast they were going, what speed they were at or describe any incidents like crashes.
Personally, I think with the broadcasting of any sporting events on TV, there should be two options – one, have the audio description on a different channel without the commentary team speaking, or two, have the commentary team give the commentary like it would be a radio commentary with more descriptive details, but also analysis.
My preference would be option two, as it would feel more natural to have two experts talking about the sport, but also giving enough information and narration for blind or visually impaired people to be able to follow the action more fully.
As a huge fan of football, I regularly try to create this myself where possible. For instance, if a football match is being broadcast on BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Sky Sports or TNT Sports, but it’s also available on BBC radio, I tend to use my smart speaker to play the radio commentary and then sync it with the TV pictures.
In some international football tournaments, the BBC does offer the option to play the BBC 5 Live commentary with the pictures on BBC iPlayer.
I know some of you may be thinking why bother watching it on TV if it’s already available on the radio, but for many of us with sight loss, we do have some useful sight and can still see some elements of what’s happening on the TV. For me, I can still see close-up shots and slow down replays of events during a match, but still like to have the radio commentary as additional descriptions of the areas I can’t see. Also, if you want to watch sports with other sighted family and friends, it’s still nice to have access to both the television for them and the radio for those of us with sight loss.
YouTube and highlights coverage: a mixed accessibility experience
Another barrier was that the coverage on Channel 4 tended to only run until 2pm, and the rest of the sport was available on the Channel 4 Sport YouTube channel, which unfortunately did not offer any live audio description.
Before the Games began, I was quite keen to watch some of the wheelchair curling, hoping it would include audio description as it is a very visual sport, but most of the live action was only available on YouTube.
On the plus side, the YouTube channel did provide a daily highlights package, which included integrated audio description from a narrator. When I first watched one of these videos, I initially thought it was just a generic voiceover person giving a quick overview of the events. But instead, they cleverly integrated some visual descriptions of the sporting action. I feel like this is the kind of thing it should also be producing with live coverage as well as highlights.
Although I do not use BSL, I would say it was great to have it included during the highlights programme on Channel 4, but one of my thoughts, similar to the descriptive audio on the YouTube highlights, is that they could make more of it available across the live coverage. One reason could be that not all deaf people have strong reading skills to read the subtitles and may prefer following the coverage with BSL.
I understand that providing audio description and BSL throughout the Paralympic Games can be a challenge, as you need enough people to join the team as describers and interpreters, and many other logistics that go along with producing the coverage.
I think my best suggestion for now would be to try to integrate as much accessibility as possible into what is already available. This could include training sports commentators to commentate as though it were for radio, giving more descriptions and details, such as the time or score that has appeared in the graphic, the speed at which the athlete is going, or exactly where a curling stone has landed in the house (curling target).
Opening and closing ceremonies: strong approach with room for improvement
With regards to the opening and closing ceremonies, I personally didn’t get to see much of this, but what I did see I think was overall good. The fact that they separated the main commentary with an audio-described commentary on two different channels worked well. It did amuse me at times when the describers weren’t sure how to describe something or knew the name of a person and were 10 to make things up a little bit and debate what something or someone might be called, which brought some humour to the event.
The only criticism was that at one point the audio description told me that in the corner of the screen was an interview with the athlete Menna Fitzpatrick during the closing ceremony, but as we had the audio description on 4seven, it wouldn’t let us hear the interview, and therefore I switched back to Channel 4 to listen to it. In these cases, it would be good if there were an option to still have audio description, but when there is a dialogue like this, we still have the option to hear what is being said.
Community feedback: widespread concerns over accessibility on Channel 4
Following the Winter Paralympics, I put a call out on Facebook for other blind and visually impaired people’s experiences of accessing the coverage. Overall, responses highlighted significant dissatisfaction with Paralympic coverage, particularly poor-quality audio description, missing key details during events, and limited broadcast visibility. Many felt coverage was undervalued.
Beyond sport, contributors also noted ongoing accessibility gaps across Channel 4 content, including inconsistent audio description availability and limited support across devices and programmes.
Did you watch the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Paralympic Games on Channel 4? How accessible did you think the coverage was for people with sight loss and hearing impairments? Share your thoughts in the comments box, on social media or contact us to share your personal story.
Stay tuned for a future article in which we delve deeper into the accessibility on Channel 4 and aim to speak to Channel 4 Access Service Manager, Jonathan Penny.