Study: Blind People Watch TV About as Much as Sighted People

Ninety-six percent of visually impaired adults watch TV on a regular basis, according to Comcast and the American Foundation for the Blind

| February 17, 2018 @ 11:00 AM
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The majority of people with visual disabilities watch four or more hours of television per day, which is almost as much as the general public, a new survey by Comcast and the American Foundation for the Blind found.

That’s compared to a Nielsen study from 2016 that found the average person watched about five hours of television per day.

“It’s a myth to think that you can’t enjoy television just because you have a visual disability,” said Tom Wlodkowski, Vice President of Accessibility for Comcast, who was born blind.

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The survey, which found that 96 percent of visually impaired adults watch television on a regular basis, was conducted by Global Strategy Group and surveyed 626 visually impaired adults, including 277 adults with “no functional vision” between Oct. 9 and Nov. 27, 2017.

The results were weighted to correspond to national data about the visually impaired population, and designed to be compatible with screen readers and screen magnifiers.

Additionally, the survey found that  81 percent watch more than an hour per day and 55 percent watch four or more hours per day.

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But it’s not always easy for the visually impaired to enjoy their favorite shows: of those surveyed, 65 percent encountered problems with looking up what’s on TV, and 53 percent experienced difficulty in following along with key visual elements. Less than half surveyed were aware of assistive technologies like video description and talking TV guides.

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