A ccessible Media Inc. (AMI) has expanded its original content slate for 2023, starting with a broadcast version of its audio program Kelly and Ramya filmed on a newly-built studio space.

“We’re essentially doubling our live content on AMI-tv,” John Melville, VP of content development and operations of AMI-tv/AMI-audio, tells Playback Daily.

Hosted by Kelly MacDonald and Ramya Amuthan, the show (pictured) will premiere on AMI-tv on Jan. 9, 2023, and will air weekday afternoons. It will be simulcast on the platform AMI-audio, where the show has been released over the past five years. It complements AMI-tv’s two-hour news and current events show NOW with Dave Brown, which airs weekday mornings. Hosted by seasoned broadcaster and journalist Dave Brown, who is blind, the show premiered as a simulcast on AMI-tv and AMI-audio on February 2020.

Kelly and Ramya features news on community events, lifestyle and entertainment, and discussions around issues that impact the disability community. The duo will be joined by 30 contributors, who share expert advice, and eight community reporters from the blind and partially-sighted community across the country.

“We were seeing numbers in Numeris that were actually showing up for AMI-audio, which is sort of unheard of, and just tracking the day-to-day feedback we got from the audience. We thought, ‘why not put the show on TV like we have done with NOW with Dave Brown?,'” he says, noting they wanted to expand the show in order to introduce it to the potentially larger audience AMI-tv could offer.

Melville says in order to go forward with a more “robust live strategy,” AMI decided to invest in a new production control room and a new state-of-the-art production studio in Toronto.

“We took a look at the technology we were using and it evolved organically when we decided to move into live television,” says Melville, noting that the new production studio “offers high-quality video for hosts in remote home studios and a 400 square-foot studio at AMI headquarters for in-studio hosts.”

“This is interchangeable between NOW with Dave Brown and Kelly and Ramya, with different set-ups and backgrounds. The studio offers better redundancy in case of equipment failures or potential pandemic lockdown orders and improved accessibility,” he says.

Melville adds Kelly and Ramya will have improved on-screen graphics and integrated described video, which involves speakers describing the visuals in real time, for accessibility.

“We [also] have a media accessibility supervisor, Em Williams, who works in-house with us and provides ongoing feedback on all of our programming, both live shows and the series we produce, to ensure that everything is fully accessible to a blind and partially-sighted audience and deaf and hard of hearing, as well. Those are the two communities that have the most barriers to media if they don’t have captioning or description.”

For their 2023 slate, AMI-tv has 15 series currently in production that are scheduled to air before the end of August 2023. The slate includes AMI-tv’s first scripted series, Champagna’s Womb Envy. The 12 x 15 minute series is also the channel’s first co-commission with OUTtv. It is produced by Charlie David of Border2Border Entertainment, and will be released on AMI’s website and mobile app this spring. “We’re excited to see what we get and how it does, and if it does OK, we’ll do more. Scripted is definitely an area that AMI would like to get into more,” says Melville.

The unscripted slated for 2023 include the series premiere of docuseries Ness Murby: Transcending (Anaïd Production), and the second seasons of lifestyle series Fashion Dis (Nikki Ray Media Agency), created and hosted by Ardra Shephard, and docuseries Breaking Character (Winterhouse Films).

Other returning titles include the third seasons of factual series By Hook or By Cook, (Render Digital Media), and cooking show Dish with Mary (Frank Digital); and the fourth seasons of docuseries Postcards From… (Black Rhino Creative), and factual title Level Playing Field (Evergreen Productions).

“We also have a few more surprises in store… Then, there’ll be a move away from acquired content. In the past, AMI has always described other people’s programming, but what we want to do now is really focus on creating our own content,” says Melville, adding that AMI is also looking for new projects from content creators from the disability community. “Not only that, but also that their pitches incorporate people with disabilities not just in front of a camera but behind the cameras as well.”

Melville estimates that by September 2023, the mix will be 80% original content, including live programs like NOW with Dave Brown and Kelly and Ramya, TV series and documentaries, and up to 20% acquired movies and documentaries.

As for French-language channel AMI-télé’s 2023 slate, Isabella Federigi, VP of content development and programming, says they’re in production on a pilot based on the French sitcom format Vestiaires (Locker Room), which is being produced by Sphere Media. It is scheduled to air in the 2023-24 broadcast year. The story takes place in a public pool change room and will feature a complete cast of actors from the disability community.

They are also in development on a youth animated series that was pitched to AMI-télé by Sphere Animation. “The project was pitched to anglophone and francophone Canadian broadcasters. AMI-télé and AMI-tv have joined in for the development along with two other Canadian broadcasters. An Irish broadcaster is also involved in the development,” she says. “We are all involved in the financing of the development.”

“The fifth season of Ca ne se demande pas (You Can’t Ask That) will air in January, and we have a dating show that will air in February. We also have a big series on technologies and discoveries that will help people with disabilities to have a simpler or easier life through technology, that’s coming up in the spring,” says Federigi.

“For the summer, we have a different kind of show hosted by a very well-known rock musician in Quebec. Every episode he’s going to meet with a disabled musician and he’s going to take them to his studio where they’re going to jam around in some tunes and then at the end, they’re going to tape a song together and create a video… It’s a very warm and very good summer series. As for September [2023], we’ll see. We’re still in development and production but we have other shows that are coming up. For now, the main focus is the winter and spring.”

Image courtesy of AMI