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In this insightful episode of Remarkable World Commentary, Donna J. Jodhan welcomes longtime colleague and mentor John Melville for a candid conversation about how a career in radio, television, and sports broadcasting unexpectedly led him into accessibility leadership. John reflects on his early path, from studies at Carleton and Humber to behind-the-scenes roles in major Canadian media, and explains how “theater of the mind” in radio helped shape his understanding of what inclusive broadcasting really requires. Together, they revisit AMI’s evolution from a niche service into a network striving to be “television that includes everyone,” and how Donna’s own advocacy and on-air work intersected with that mission.
The discussion then digs into the practical “how”: why AMI made open described video the default, the policy and funding context behind it, and how the team later experimented with integrated described video to improve flow and reduce conflicts with dialogue. John also highlights AMI’s efforts to push accessibility into fast-moving formats (including described Blue Jays broadcasts), the impact of shows like You Can’t Ask That in breaking down stigma, and the growth of tech programming (like Access Tech Live) that spotlights tools, sometimes created “by accident”, that become life-changing for blind and low-vision users. Looking ahead, he outlines AMI’s focus on higher-impact productions, wider distribution beyond traditional cable (including YouTube), and building a pipeline where creators with disabilities are increasingly in front of and behind the camera, a future he frames as both necessary and exciting, closing with warm mutual respect between him and Donna.
TRANSCRIPT
Podcast Commentator: Greetings.
Podcast Commentator: Donna J Jodhan, LLB, ACSP and MBA, invites you to listen to her biweekly podcast, Remarkable World Commentary. Here, Donna shares some of her innermost thoughts, insights, perspectives, and more with her listeners. Donna focuses on topics that directly affect the future of kids, especially kids with disabilities. Donna is a blind advocate, author, site loss coach, dinner mystery producer, writer, entrepreneur, law graduate, and podcast commentator. She has decades of lived experiences, knowledge, skills, and expertise in access technology and information as someone who has been internationally recognized for her work and roles, she just wants to make things better than possible.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of Remarkable World Commentary. I am Donna Jodhan, a lifelong disability advocate and one who sees the world mainly through sound, touch and stubborn optimism. I am a law graduate, accessibility consultant, author, lifelong barrier buster also happens to be blind. You may know me from a few headline moments, as in November 2010, I won the Landmark Charter case that forced the Canadian government to make its websites accessible to every Canadian, not just a sighted ones. And in July of 2019, I co-led the Accessible Canada Act, with more than two dozen disability groups to turn equal access into federal law, and most recently, in June of 2022. I was greatly humbled. Humbled by Her Late Majesty’s Platinum Jubilee Award for tireless commitment to removing barriers. When I’m not in a courtroom or in a committee room or in a pottery studio, you’ll find me coaching kids with vision loss, producing audio mysteries, or helping companies to make their gadgets talk back in plain language. Everything I do circles one goal to turn accessibility from an afterthought into everyday practice. I invite you to think of this show as our shared workbench Where policy meets, live experience and live experience sparks fresh ideas. Now, before we jump into today’s conversation, let me shine a spotlight on today’s Guest changemaker, whose work is as every bit as remarkable as the world that we are trying to change and build. John Melville. I am pleased and delighted to welcome you to my Remarkable World Commentary podcast.
John Melville: Thank you Donna, it’s an honor to be with you today.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: We have known each other for a very long time and you have been my mentor, my friend, my advisor, and you have helped me to engage in many different aspects of accessibility and advocacy on the Accessible Media Inc program. So welcome again to you.
John Melville: It’s good to be here.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Great. So, John, I’d love to start at the beginning. And looking back on your studies in communications at Carleton and radio broadcasting at Humber, what first drew you into broadcasting? Broadcasting. And did you ever imagine that that path would one day intersect so deeply with accessibility?
John Melville: Well, I’ll answer the last part first, and then I’ll explain how. And I know I did not expect it would intersect with accessibility and disability. I had a bit of a meandering start to my career as as when we’re young, you know, we we’re not really sure. So I went to Carleton and I started in the journalism program there, and I realized that I didn’t. I wasn’t really the type of person that wanted to follow politicians around with a notepad, which is kind of back then the way it was done. Right? Although it was very exciting to be in Ottawa because I am a bit of a political animal myself, so I was always really interested in politics. But I moved into Carlton’s film program because I’ve always had a really great admiration for movies and movie directors. And, you know, I thought my career was going to be something related to film. And, you know, I was 19, 20 years old at the time. I graduated from Carlton with a BA. And then I proceeded to sort of take my gap year, which turned into about seven years. In that time, though I was you know, working on my own video production business. This is back in the 80s producing corporate videos.
John Melville: We did weddings, we had a disc jockey service. It was quite a quite a entrepreneurial phase for me. But I realised that, you know, having to buy all this equipment and refresh it and everything else was probably not sustainable. And I wasn’t that kind of business guy. So I went back to Humber College in Toronto because I had always had a love of radio, particularly music radio. And I spent a year in their certificate program doing radio broadcasting. And this would be 1989, 1990 had some great teachers there. Learned all about the inner workings of radio and formats and production, writing, sales and got myself as an intern at Tele-media broadcasting, which was actually the rights holder for the Toronto Blue Jays radio. But at the time I got in there, I didn’t realize that that was going to be anything to do with me because I was interested in music and music radio. I wanted to be a disc jockey, but I learned fairly quickly that the real job security in media is not necessarily in front of the microphone, but behind it. And I set my path into operations, which I really enjoyed all the sort of technical aspects and scheduling and all that kind of stuff.
John Melville: And where I was working was actually very sports intensive, so I was able to be around for the launch of the sports radio format in Toronto in, I think, 1991, which was the fan sports radio at the time. Met a lot of the people that are involved with sports broadcasting today that are very familiar household names. They were we were all kind of just young people at that time kind of trying something new And then after about five years of that, I joined the Score television network when they were launching in 1996. Spent four years there, and that’s where I got my exposure to television production. And I spent. So I now have a hybrid kind of TV guy, radio guy which is a little bit unique. But I found the application of both to be very very good for me in terms of career fulfillment and also types of jobs that I was able to get. One of the highlights that I had in my career was in 2005, I was became part of the satellite radio launch in Canada with XM radio, which is now Sirius XM radio.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Yes.
John Melville: And we were the Canadian version of what is mainly a US broadcaster. And they have, you know, 150 channels of music and talk. We were producing 20 channels in Canada and we had to build studios and I was involved in that. I loved it. It was like old days of radio again that I’d learned about when I was at Humber, and I was there till 2011, and when I was actually, it was just before their merger. And my old boss from. Well, he’s not an old guy, but he was my previous boss, I should say, who had worked with me at XM radio. Ross Davies former program director of Chum-fm. He had suggested that I might want to reach out because Army was actually looking for a director of production production, and he thought my skills might be worthwhile to them. So I reached out to the recruiter, and one thing led to another, as they say, and I ended up starting my career with Army. And that’s what I’m saying. At the beginning, I had no idea at the time that my career would converge around accessibility and disability. But when I joined Army in 2011, everything made sense.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: That’s when we met shortly.
John Melville: Actually, it was right at the very beginning because I was moving fairly quickly when I walked in the doors of Army they were looking actually, they had hired David Harrington a couple of years before me as their CEO. They had previously been known as tech TV, the Accessible Channel. Right. And David was brought in in 2009 when the Army TV channel was launched to basically, you know, modernize and reinvent this, this network, which was providing great service to people from the blind and partially sighted community through the audio channel Voiceprint. And now they had this new TV channel which was adding audio description to TV shows that they were buying. And essentially putting audio description on them. And the problem was that there weren’t a lot of people that were in the organization at that time that knew a lot about how the broadcasting industry works. So David was brought in, and he and I had actually worked together at the school. It was coincidental that we ended up back in the same place. But David was my boss when I joined. He still is today. And it was really an opportunity for us to apply all the learning that we had had in our careers to that point in time to this new, emerging accessible channel and to reinvent Voiceprint, which at the time which became Ami audio into something that would become more relevant to the community that we’re destined to serve.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: You were part of the team that launched Canada’s first all sports talk station at the fan 500, and later helped build the Score television network from the ground up. So from my perspective as a blind sportsman, live coverage is all about sound and description. How did those early sports projects shape the way you think about making fast moving content understandable and and engaging for everyone?
John Melville: Well, it’s an interesting question. And when I was at Telemedia, they had the radio rights for the Toronto Maple Leafs and for the Toronto Blue Jays. So it was basically Leafs in winter, Blue Jays in summer, and there was a bit of overlap, but we figured that out. And essentially, as you know, baseball goes like every night during the season. And we had games running from beginning of March for spring training right through until. And at that time, the Jays were in the World Series in 91, 90 or 92, 93. So we were we were doing this right up until the end of October. What I had found you know, there and became kind of ingrained into me as a lover of radio was the, the picture that was drawn. And I will say, and it will probably talk a little bit more about him in a, you know, as we go through this, that the Blue Jays radio at that time was it was Tom cheek and Jerry Howarth were the play by play guys. And they also did the color commentary. Right. So so if Tom is calling the ball game or the inning, you know, strikes and balls and, you know, line drives and the whole bit, Jerry is providing all the other description around that. So he is a wonderful day at the ballpark. You know, we’ve got the flags blowing off in right field and that ball that just flied out guy with a red hat in the seats over there is with his daughter.
John Melville: Caught the ball. It was kind of like that. And I know that a lot of people still listen to the baseball broadcast, but I do. Yeah, it really is kind of theater of the mind, right? You don’t need to have the TV up in front of it. And it’s an interesting little tidbit here is when Joe Carter hit the home run the famous home run, you know, touch em all, Joe. You’ll never hit another home run like that. That was actually Tom’s call on radio. But he writes to the Jays at that time were when they were in the playoffs were held by the Americans. I think it was CBS at that time. And what they did was they took for Canada. They took the when they clipped the highlight, they took Tom’s radio call and put it with the TV clip because it was so much better. Okay. And that to me was something that through both the score and through the Telemedia stage with the Jays and the Leafs, that I really kind of got a handle on where radio, sound meets pictures, television and how the two really need to work together so that everybody can be included in the broadcast. And it’s really what we kind of go on to do at Ami is filling in the the visuals with either sound like natural sound, like the sound of the bat hitting the ball.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Right.
John Melville: Or description. So sports is a very good playing field, if I can use that analogy for the big picture in broadcasting as to making it accessible for everyone.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Wow. You’ve worked across so many corners of the industry. Telemedia CHUM Satellite Radio at X Canada and now at EMI. So when you look back over that journey, what were a couple of turning point moments that nudge you toward making accessibility a central part of your work, rather than just another box to tick?
John Melville: Well, I sort of alluded to it a little bit already, and that is, you know, my unique experience being able to work in television and also in radio. And, you know, the, the, the, the visuals that we have on television. And I mentioned to you earlier that I originally got into film. You know, I was a big fan of, you know, great directors like Kubrick, Lumet, you know and the films from the 70s. I thought cinema was fantastic in that era when I was growing up. And for me, that a couple of turning points was definitely you know, being having the honor and privilege of being able to work as an engineer alongside Jerry Howarth. You know, when I realized that my music career as a disc jockey wasn’t really going to happen because I’d landed in a sports network. Right. I would call that a turning point, you know? And had that not happened to me, I would never have got the exposure that I got that would set me up later life. To understand how audio and pictures need to work together to deliver the full package, and not just to people who are blind and partially sighted. The whole point is that it’s something that everybody can benefit from. You know, even if you can see what’s going on on the field, there’s so much more information that you’re going to get through the audio presentation as well. You know, it’s almost like you have two tracks, you have visuals and you have audio. And what we do with audio, especially in things like baseball, is really make that, you know, something that connects people and gives the full picture. So the pictures become secondary. So that would be the one turning point. The other turning point was I was spent a bit of time at CHUM.
John Melville: We tried to launch another sports network with CHUM back in 2001. Some people might remember the Team Sports Radio Network. It didn’t last very long and we all got laid off. But that’s another story. It happens. And I went to work with John Bitove company who at that time he was owner of Prism brands, which was KFC, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut and my my former boss, who I tended to travel around with a bit from job to job. Paul Williams had brought me along with him to prison, and we were at that time, we were working on things like digital signage, and I was so far away from my first love of media that it was like, oh my goodness, will I ever get back. And fate took a turn there, and it just so happened that John Bitove was also one of the applicants for the XM radio license, which was granted in 2005. And so when he realized that Paul and I were radio guys working in his organization, he was like, okay, well, you need to go over here and work with the radio launch. So that was another turning point. And in spite of the fact that I love to work in visual and television and film I always seem to end up gravitating back to radio. So. And I would say that the years I spent with XM were some of the best career years I had so an unexpected turning point. You know, just sometimes you get into something, you wonder if is this the right thing for me? And it all changed. And through a piece of fate, I was back in radio and launching again something that was still around today and is very special.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Now, before you joined Army Accessible Media Inc Army was often treated as a niche service. But when you first walk through the doors at Army, what did you see that made you think we can build something truly different here. And how did you start turning that vision into a concrete strategy?
John Melville: Well, I have to say that it was a shared vision through Army’s board of directors at that time who realized that they had something special with the two licenses for television and for for my audio voiceprint. It was also when they brought my my current boss, David Errington, on board. And he was able to take that vision that the board had and essentially consolidate the brand. Right. Because they had TAC TV, they had voiceprint.
John Melville: And there was a bit of a, yeah, a marketing push required to basically say, you know, we are the accessible channel and we are accessible in audio and in television and in description. So that was kind of what was put in front of me when I joined the organization, how that was the goal. You know, we we need to consolidate this brand and make it a player in Canadian media, meaning that it’s not so niche that nobody’s ever going to hear about it. You really have to make a conscious attempt to the old term in boxing. Punch above your weight. Because if we just sit back and continue doing. You know, reading newspapers and magazines or just putting description onto old content. That’s a very limited trajectory in terms of, you know, growth and where the where the network is going to go. What I realized when I came into the organization was, you know, the opportunity and I, you know, there was a slogan that TAC TV used to use before it was MTV was television. That includes everyone. And I always liked that because for me, that was kind of. Well, there’s the mission statement right there. You mentioned Niche channel, right? Yes. And what what niche kind of says to me is like, it’s a specialty. It’s like for people that only want this type of content. And you could say that about Army. You could say it’s just about description or it’s just about reading newspapers.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Right. Right.
John Melville: Right. But for us, it was like, what we want to do is make this something that is relevant to everyone, relevant to people from the disability community, relevant to their families, relevant to people who have an understanding or want to have an understanding of what goes on in the disability community, what it is like to have a disability and be working in a barrier, you know, not barrier free. I know that you’re involved in that. But, you know, certainly at that time, new legislation coming out with respect to the Accessibility Act, with building codes, you know, the the awareness of all that was something that I think that am I tried to build into its DNA so that because we’re distributed right across Canada into every home that has basic cable We wanted to make sure that we were reaching audiences that were listening or wanted to listen to what we had to say. And it wasn’t that we were telling people what to do or what to say. We were looking for creators and people who are involved in advocacy. And I think that’s how you and I met who have a platform to tell their story. Right. And but the Army entity is something I think it is. It’s television that includes everyone.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: You know, and I I’m listening to you here, boy. I really feel as if I’ve traveled a long road with you since 2011, and I’m very pleased and privileged to have been part of this journey, you know.
John Melville: But it’s been a thrill. Yeah. Remember when we had the the the governor general?
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Oh, yes.
John Melville: In the debates? Yes, there were some high points there. Yeah.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: I mean, we’ve been involved in so many different aspects, you know, like live in studio, how it works, all these different things. And I, I learned a lot. I learned a lot under your tutelage and with your team, you know.
John Melville: Yes.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: So MIT is now recognized as the first network, as the first network in the world to offer all of its programming with open described video as a blind viewer. This is huge. So can you walk us through the thinking and the risks behind that decision and what it took operationally to make open description the default instead of a special feature?
John Melville: Sure. That’s a big question. I’ll try and and slice it down a bit because there’s a lot in it. But just to give it some focus, I would start by saying that it the genesis of the the channel came from the Broadcasting Act. There’s the clause in the Broadcasting Act nine, one clause. And I think it’s 91HH now they’ve added another h. Yes. That said, you know, channels will be given or applicant channels will be given carriage across Canada through mandatory subscriber fees that will be collected by the cable companies. And those channels have to demonstrate they are of exceptional importance to the Canadian public. And there’s a couple of obvious examples that are also 91H along with Ami. It was for example, APTN. Right. So we don’t necessarily know where indigenous people in Canada live. We don’t know where people who are blind and partially sighted live in Canada. In other words, you know, you could be anywhere. You could be in the Yukon, you could be in Quebec, you could be in Vancouver Island. So the only way to reach you, according to Parliament, is that the channel has to be available to everyone on the basic tier, right? So our board prior to Ami launching looked at this channel of exceptional importance. And one of our members, I believe, was Betty Noble was.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Part of the.
John Melville: Original launch team. This would be probably around 2006. Said, well, we should apply for a license because what we want to be able to do, because regular television is not offering description. They’re not offering DV. Yeah. Yes. As you pointed out what little DV there was, you know, that you could find had to be turned on using this complicated menu system on your.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Oh yeah.
John Melville: Yeah. Right. So their approach was if we put DV on everything that we have will, you know, and just say to say to the CRTC we’re not we’re going to put it right onto the programs. We’re not going to make people have to turn it on or off. So I suppose if you don’t like DV, the downside is if you’re watching Ami content, you’re always going to have description. Because it’s available all the time. So it wasn’t that difficult from a production point of view to put it on. Right. Because we were essentially bypassing the system that said, you know, it’s got to go in this menu on this line and all this kind of stuff. So that was relatively straightforward. I mean, we did have to write and voice all the description for the shows because anything we were buying we had to describe for the first time, that was part of Crtc’s condition of licence for us at the time.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Right. Right.
John Melville: And the CRTC will, when they give you a license, will add conditions that say, you know, you have to spend X number of dollars on Canadian content production. You have to ensure that, you know, everything is openly described. And by meeting those conditions, you are now classified as A91 channel, which is going to get distribution throughout the basic tier. And thus your funding formula comes in in the form of I think it was $0.10 per subscriber which is part of the sub fee that they collect on the monthly cable bills. Right. So we would get that $0.10. And that gave us our production budget to buy the content, to produce the DV and run any of our administration side of things. Obviously, you know, we have master control, we have employees. You know, there’s a there’s a structure in there as well that makes all this stuff happen. So the technical aspect was actually quite straightforward. We’ve since evolved a bit. So we we looked at it and we started to say, you know, sometimes the DV isn’t that great or it’s a bit redundant on a show, meaning.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: It’s.
John Melville: Almost fighting with the dialogue. Right? There’s not great places to put it in. So I think it was around 2013 that we started to experiment with integrated described video, which is essentially when we write the show, and this tends to be more for the original content that we now create, as opposed to the content we would buy. Because once you buy content, it’s already made, so you can only put description on it.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Okay.
John Melville: For stuff that you’re actually making for the first time, you can actually write the program in a way that the person who’s presenting is able to describe as they’re presenting. So you don’t need to have that second voice involved. So it wasn’t that difficult to do it. And it’s probably more difficult to turn it off now because all of our content has DV or DV in it. And, you know, I think that’s a good thing. We’ve had a couple of shows that have aired on CBC with ITV. One of them being you can’t ask that. That was all produced with ITV and the CRTC recognized when we developed ITV that this was a form of open description. So it’s something that we’ve been working with and, you know, we will put description on when we feel it’s necessary. And we’re always evaluating the content that we produce to make sure that it’s accessible to a blind or partially sighted person. And that is done in a way where our DV specialists will look at the content, meaning they’ll listen to it twice without any pictures that they are understanding everything that’s going on.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: This is so technical. I mean, it’s so in-depth. You know. One of the projects many of us remember is Amis described broadcasts of the Toronto Blue Jays games as someone who grew up listening to sports on the radio. I’m fascinated by the blend of play by play and description. So how did that partnership come together, and what did you learn from trying to make live, professional sports fully accessible for fans with vision loss?
John Melville: So we I mentioned that you know, both David and I had been working with the Blue Jays at. I was working with them at Telemedia, and then I worked with them with David at The Score, because the score also had rights to Blue Jays radio after Telemedia let, let them go. So we both had the opportunity to work with it, and we both worked with Tom cheek and Jerry Howarth in the radio divisions. When we both arrived at EMI we were talking about, you know the opportunity to take a weekend broadcast of the Blue Jays, say, a Saturday afternoon. And let’s try adding description, live description to it. We’d done some live description already with the royal wedding. Prince William and Kate Middleton. Yeah, we were the first to do that, even ahead of BBC, who actually were the host broadcaster of that. But we thought, you know, live description. Well, what can we add to it? Essentially it was the missing piece that, you know, I mentioned earlier that we we had, you know, a radio clip running with the TV highlights when you hear the Joe Carter call. Yeah. But we looked at the Jays and said if we were to add a third voice, so we’ve got the play by play person, we’ve got the color person. What if we add a third voice in there who can, you know, fill in any blanks that are still taking place because people are there watching the TV. They’re not listening to the radio in this case. So we approached Sportsnet and we made a deal with Sportsnet to acquire the games from them.
John Melville: And we literally had a describer who would sit and watch the game as the play by play team for Sportsnet were calling it, and anything that was missed would be added in by the describer. And these describers were sports broadcasters too. We had Sam Cosentino was involved in it. People may know him from his junior hockey on Sportsnet Jim Van Horne. One of the TSN originals and Jim has since gone on to work with NBC on describing the Olympic Games when they had the rights. So that was kind of how it all came about. And we did that for a few years. It was actually it was it was an interesting sort of time for us where we were trying different things, and it was well received by the blind and partially sighted community who were watching those games. You know, but the problem that we it’s not sustainable because unless Sportsnet makes a a product that’s more descriptive, it’s too expensive for us to be doing that, you know, for 162 games of the year. So we did it. And I think Sportsnet have, you know, picked up a few tips from the times when we did that to potentially make those games. I think Dan and Buck do a great job now of, you know, doing the play by play and full description probably better than it was back then when we started doing the DV for the Jays.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: The series you can’t ask that invites people with disabilities to answer the uncomfortable questions others often think but never say aloud. So from your seat, why was it important for Army to bring that format to Canadian audiences, and how do you see it helping to dismantle this terror, the stereotypes and artificial barriers that so many of us face all the time.
John Melville: The So a lot of the shows that come to us come from producers who are working with creators and have developed an idea. Right. So this producer came from Edmonton. This idea actually came through CBC originally. And the producer had pitched CBC on the idea and CBC were were the original producer or broadcaster for that show, and they did two seasons of that, and they offered us to come in with them on that. So this happens sometimes where we get collaboration on it. And I think it was interesting because CBC, being a mainstream broadcaster for all Canadians as well recognized to the points you were making about the tone of the show that, you know, this maybe does make people feel uncomfortable, but the it’s okay to ask these questions, right? It’s okay to hear the answers to those questions. We we did three seasons all together on that show, and it was just a very popular format. I think it sort of broke the ice for people and let people know that it was okay to have, you know, a conversation with somebody with a disability like you. You know, if you’re curious you can ask questions, right? And there’s a lot of sort of predetermined sort of thought processes that people have, you know, where it leads.
John Melville: We call it prejudice, right? Where it leads to. You know, I’ve already figured out the answer, even without asking the person. Right. And that’s kind of what you can’t ask that I think was able to sort of break down was, you know what? There’s a different story from the perspective of the person with the disability, and maybe you need to hear it. And then when everybody hears it, they’re kind of laughing and saying, oh, you know, it wasn’t wasn’t as bad as I thought, you know, and it’s okay to to understand that because this is the way it is, right? So yeah, I think that was we do many different shows and, and they all have kind of a different angle, but that was one I think that a lot of people saw because it was also on CBC and it’s still running today. It’s going to be going up on our YouTube channel in the spring. So if you haven’t seen it on my TV, we’re going to be making all our content available on YouTube as well.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Wow. So the clock is starting to wind down. But I got this question for you. Access to technology is such a big part of independence for blind and partially sighted people with access to tech live, you have created a weekly space dedicated to accessible and mainstream tech. What gap did you see in the media landscape that this show was designed to fill, and how have viewers responded? So far?
John Melville: The gap okay, so I think it was I’m just going to tell a little story here because it goes back to a discussion. I was over in Scotland at Rnib radio, and I met a gentleman there who was working on the Rnib morning show, and it was a bit like Ami Audio’s you know, he they were reading newspapers and things like that. Right. And I’m like, this is interesting. So we just wanted to see how they did things. The gentleman Stephen Scott, who is probably well known to Ami listeners now you know, was very interested in technology. He was he is blind. He was partially sighted. But you know, I believe he still is partially sighted, but he has degenerative eye disease, so his sight is not improving at all. And Steven was is a big proponent. He’s always the guy out there with the first iPhone. He’s, you know, he’s checking all the accessibility features. And I hooked him up with another producer that I’ve been working with for years, Marc Aflalo. And said, Marc, you should talk to Steven because Marc had a tech show running here. It was just a standard technology show radio show. And, you know, you should talk to Steven because I think there might be a fit here for us being able to focus the technology, show more on the technology, the the the ability for technology to assist people with disabilities. And many times a lot of that technology exists by accident.
John Melville: So something like Siri, for example, was not developed for people who are blind and partially sighted. It was developed for the general population, but it became much more valuable to people who are blind and partially sighted in its first iteration, because it was something that this is we’ve been waiting for something like this, right? But Apple didn’t necessarily develop it for that reason. And what Steven was able to do was shine a light on technology that was really starting to break ground and with with the disability community. And I was over in Scotland at the Tech Share Europe, I believe it was in 2018, and we did a presentation on our live description, which I was talking about a little earlier. I was talking about the Blue Jays, and Stephen was there too. And what we noticed was all the big tech companies Google, Apple Panasonic. We’re all there as well to learn about the needs of people who are blind and partially sighted. It was primarily around the people who need media assistance, and it generally is blind and partially sighted, and people who are deaf or hard of hearing that require most assistance with their media consumption. Right. Because you need to have captioning, you need to have ASL. You need to have description. You know, these are the tools that are required so that you can access that media.
John Melville: And so Stephen and Mark came to us with a show idea that we’re going to do this weekly show. It started actually on Ami audio with Double Tap Canada which a lot of people are familiar with. And Double Tap is still running. Yes. And it’s been going now for seven, eight years. That’s more of a weekly kind of long form drop in. Let’s talk about tech kind of show, but it’s always about accessible tech and access. Tech live was kind of the video version of that, and we streamed it on YouTube and it was made available on the audio platform like a radio show. So the importance of technology is always something that’s in the sort of bull’s eye for Ami TV and Ami audio, because it is one of the most important pieces of assistance that somebody who is trying to consume media or trying to make a phone call or trying to type a text, the easier that that can be made for them is, you know, where we’re evolving to now. And when you hear about the next things like you know, artificial intelligence, AI, you know, and things like that, it’s an ongoing discussion. It’s an ongoing story. And what Ami wants to do is put people with disabilities right at the front end of that technology so that they’re the first to hear about it and how it can help them in their lives.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Is there any room for the good old. You know, when I first became involved with with ami and yourself, like, you know, I had the detective DJ series, is there any room for, you know, like good old storytelling shows on Army still, or are you going more toward technology and you know, the way you’re going right now.
John Melville: The way we’re going right now is actually into larger productions on the TV side. What we’re trying to do and the industry is, is is, you know, being incentivized to enable producers and broadcasters to kind of come together and produce really high impact shows. We want to expand audience. We want to expand our reach. We need to get outside our own ecosystem, unfortunately, because in spite of the fact that we’re carried along, you know, all the cable channels in Canada, all the cable companies in Canada, there’s only about 50% of Canadians, 60% of Canadians actually subscribe to cable now. And they generally are people who are of an older age, you know Gen Xers boomers, But millennials and Zoomers, you know, they’re on, you know, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook streaming apps. The the whole industry has become much more diversified. So, as you know, you might not be able to watch a show. None of us can watch a show if you don’t have a subscription to, you know, Paramount, right? And we just say, okay, well, I guess I’m not watching that show because I can’t afford to pay $9 or $12 a month for that streaming app because I’ve already got Netflix. But Amazon, if I’m lucky and, you know, there’s a dozen others out there. So what we’re trying to do is create those high impact shows that are going to be able to be seen on, you know, apps or networks that are going to be easily accessible to people like CBC, you know like YouTube. The idea of our storytelling, though is, is not something that has gone away. In fact, we’ve been working a lot recently on the audio side, which has always been kind of the place where people who are blind and partially sighted can come to.
John Melville: Although we still do some reading on the channel, we have, you know, The Walrus, The Guardian the Globe Mail is read just as it was. That’s part of what we’ve always said we would do. They also have a new show called reflections. They have the Ami audio book review. What we’re trying to do is, I guess what you’re doing here with this podcast is, you know, have somebody come on, who is able to talk about an issue or talk about something, you know, their career or something that they’re doing. And so what you’re doing with your podcast, I think is, is a classic example of kind of where things are going. The because of the technology now with book reading you know, in the last few years, it’s come a long way. And now we have again AI getting involved in it. It’s a way of, you know, there’s more and more access to being able to read a book online. So the old form of radio drama, things like that, it’s still a very niche piece right now, and it’s probably something that would have success on YouTube, you know, because you, you stand on your own two feet on YouTube. You know, if it’s something people want, they will watch it. Right. And I mean, you can still produce it and have 400 views. And if you’re reaching that audience, that’s great. But for us, we are definitely looking at sort of, you know, we’re trying to invest the little bit of money we have into leveraging high impact productions so that we can continue to open these doors for a wider audience of people with disabilities.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: What are your final thoughts as we wind down this podcast. John, I know you’ve taken us through an immense journey, you know, from start to finish here. I mean, I’ve learned so much about, you know, who you are and what you’ve done in the past and you know, your your profile at the Army. What are your final thoughts as to what would the immediate future be for the next 3 to 5 years at Army?
John Melville: Well, I’ll tag it on to what I was just saying about the High Impact productions. And one thing we didn’t talk about. So I’m going to talk about it now in this last question, is the importance of incorporating people with disabilities into the creation of the content that Army produces. So I sit here with you now as I’m, you know, I’m not partially sighted, but I’m certainly my eyesight is not getting any better, but I’m certainly not identifying with somebody as somebody with a disability. And I think that’s important that, you know, that we don’t muddy that water too much because, you know, I think that it it can hurt others if you know, somebody coming forward with a disability and they’re kind of like, oh, you know, I’ve got a disability. I’m not to tell you what it is. Right. Which is fair enough. But the importance of understanding the connection that we have with people with disabilities and, you know, their perception of being included in content. So we’ve been doing a lot of work with mentoring. We have an apprentice program in place at Ami. We’ve had three apprentices go through in the last two years. More than that, actually. But three of the apprentices that went through in the last three years have pitched program ideas to us two of which have already gone into production.
John Melville: One of his the show from Ottawa game on. Another one is adapting which is a new scripted show we’re doing in BC, and we have a children’s show in Saskatoon. Sorry. Regina called how we do, how we do it. Sorry. How we do it that’s coming this fall. The the whole idea, though, is that people with disabilities, we are army. If we are anything now in the, you know, 2025, 2026, we are the one place that can mentor and teach people who are interested in media, who want to have a career in media, either in front of the camera or behind the camera. In production and production management. We are the people that can do that. And companies like CBC, Bell, Rogers, you know Cogeco tell us who all do production when they are looking for people and productions that they are interested in making content around. You know, it’s our hope that they can maybe have somebody that experienced army in that way, in that mentoring way, come through that door. And we’ve already seen it happen. We we’ve got a couple of people that have gone on to CDC and have had shows at CBC that worked at am I this is really, you know, where I see us going now and, and in relation to those high impact shows, the, the new one that I was talking about adapting, which we’re producing in Vancouver the young lady who is the creator identifies with the disability from the blind, partially sighted community.
John Melville: You know, she has she has created something that we want to really do justice to. We and we have a great production company working with her to realize this production, and it’s a significant cost. This, you know, we are I wouldn’t say we’re taking a gamble on it, because I think it’s going to be a great show because everybody feels so positive about it. And we also produce something with Jenny Bovaird just recently, Pretty Blind, which was also a scripted. So taking some chances. But at the core of all our content, you are going to see people with disabilities in front of the camera and behind the camera and ultimately calling the shots. I mean, you know, if probably shouldn’t say this, but it’s true. You know, my goal is to be replaced by somebody who can better advocate for the disability community with the skills and experience that I that I have as well. You know, and that’s what we hope to develop at Ami is people like that.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: John, I’d like to thank you for this interview has been very, very insightful for me and I’m really impressed with what you’ve said. And I think the future looks bright for those who are aspiring to be in front of the camera and behind the camera. And you know, keep up the great work. Go am I go.
John Melville: And, Donna, I just have to say as well, you know, you talked about you and I and how long we go back together. And here we are in 2025. And you have a podcast. I’m your guest. I do have to recognize, you know, you have been a stalwart figure in, you know, the the passion and due diligence to the, you know, what you do for the disability community and for people who are blind and partially sighted. And, you know if you weren’t doing that, we probably wouldn’t be talking today. So it it’s a great honor, as I said at the outset, to to be with you. And I thank you for for reaching out to me because it’s it’s a pleasure to have a chat with you. And it’s been a little while, but I always enjoy it.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: It’s been a pleasure. Come back anytime. If you ever think that you know you want to share something with our listeners, please do not hesitate to reach out to me.
John Melville: I will do, and you the same. Okay. And listen, have a very safe and happy holiday season. However you may celebrate.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: And you too.
John Melville: Best wishes for 2026.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: The same to you, John, and we will stay in touch.
John Melville: You bet. Thanks, Donna.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Thanks, John. Take care.
John Melville: Bye bye.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Bye. Bye now.
Podcast Commentator: Donna wants to hear from you and invites you to write to her at DonnaJodhan@gmail.com. Until next time.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA
Global Leader In Disability Rights, Digital Accessibility, And Inclusive Policy Reform
Turning policy into progress for people with disabilities.
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Remarkable World Commentary Episode #67: Interview with John Melville, VP Content Development and Operations, Accessible Media Inc.
🎙️ Listen to this Podcast.
In this insightful episode of Remarkable World Commentary, Donna J. Jodhan welcomes longtime colleague and mentor John Melville for a candid conversation about how a career in radio, television, and sports broadcasting unexpectedly led him into accessibility leadership. John reflects on his early path, from studies at Carleton and Humber to behind-the-scenes roles in major Canadian media, and explains how “theater of the mind” in radio helped shape his understanding of what inclusive broadcasting really requires. Together, they revisit AMI’s evolution from a niche service into a network striving to be “television that includes everyone,” and how Donna’s own advocacy and on-air work intersected with that mission.
The discussion then digs into the practical “how”: why AMI made open described video the default, the policy and funding context behind it, and how the team later experimented with integrated described video to improve flow and reduce conflicts with dialogue. John also highlights AMI’s efforts to push accessibility into fast-moving formats (including described Blue Jays broadcasts), the impact of shows like You Can’t Ask That in breaking down stigma, and the growth of tech programming (like Access Tech Live) that spotlights tools, sometimes created “by accident”, that become life-changing for blind and low-vision users. Looking ahead, he outlines AMI’s focus on higher-impact productions, wider distribution beyond traditional cable (including YouTube), and building a pipeline where creators with disabilities are increasingly in front of and behind the camera, a future he frames as both necessary and exciting, closing with warm mutual respect between him and Donna.
TRANSCRIPT
Podcast Commentator: Greetings.
Podcast Commentator: Donna J Jodhan, LLB, ACSP and MBA, invites you to listen to her biweekly podcast, Remarkable World Commentary. Here, Donna shares some of her innermost thoughts, insights, perspectives, and more with her listeners. Donna focuses on topics that directly affect the future of kids, especially kids with disabilities. Donna is a blind advocate, author, site loss coach, dinner mystery producer, writer, entrepreneur, law graduate, and podcast commentator. She has decades of lived experiences, knowledge, skills, and expertise in access technology and information as someone who has been internationally recognized for her work and roles, she just wants to make things better than possible.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of Remarkable World Commentary. I am Donna Jodhan, a lifelong disability advocate and one who sees the world mainly through sound, touch and stubborn optimism. I am a law graduate, accessibility consultant, author, lifelong barrier buster also happens to be blind. You may know me from a few headline moments, as in November 2010, I won the Landmark Charter case that forced the Canadian government to make its websites accessible to every Canadian, not just a sighted ones. And in July of 2019, I co-led the Accessible Canada Act, with more than two dozen disability groups to turn equal access into federal law, and most recently, in June of 2022. I was greatly humbled. Humbled by Her Late Majesty’s Platinum Jubilee Award for tireless commitment to removing barriers. When I’m not in a courtroom or in a committee room or in a pottery studio, you’ll find me coaching kids with vision loss, producing audio mysteries, or helping companies to make their gadgets talk back in plain language. Everything I do circles one goal to turn accessibility from an afterthought into everyday practice. I invite you to think of this show as our shared workbench Where policy meets, live experience and live experience sparks fresh ideas. Now, before we jump into today’s conversation, let me shine a spotlight on today’s Guest changemaker, whose work is as every bit as remarkable as the world that we are trying to change and build. John Melville. I am pleased and delighted to welcome you to my Remarkable World Commentary podcast.
John Melville: Thank you Donna, it’s an honor to be with you today.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: We have known each other for a very long time and you have been my mentor, my friend, my advisor, and you have helped me to engage in many different aspects of accessibility and advocacy on the Accessible Media Inc program. So welcome again to you.
John Melville: It’s good to be here.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Great. So, John, I’d love to start at the beginning. And looking back on your studies in communications at Carleton and radio broadcasting at Humber, what first drew you into broadcasting? Broadcasting. And did you ever imagine that that path would one day intersect so deeply with accessibility?
John Melville: Well, I’ll answer the last part first, and then I’ll explain how. And I know I did not expect it would intersect with accessibility and disability. I had a bit of a meandering start to my career as as when we’re young, you know, we we’re not really sure. So I went to Carleton and I started in the journalism program there, and I realized that I didn’t. I wasn’t really the type of person that wanted to follow politicians around with a notepad, which is kind of back then the way it was done. Right? Although it was very exciting to be in Ottawa because I am a bit of a political animal myself, so I was always really interested in politics. But I moved into Carlton’s film program because I’ve always had a really great admiration for movies and movie directors. And, you know, I thought my career was going to be something related to film. And, you know, I was 19, 20 years old at the time. I graduated from Carlton with a BA. And then I proceeded to sort of take my gap year, which turned into about seven years. In that time, though I was you know, working on my own video production business. This is back in the 80s producing corporate videos.
John Melville: We did weddings, we had a disc jockey service. It was quite a quite a entrepreneurial phase for me. But I realised that, you know, having to buy all this equipment and refresh it and everything else was probably not sustainable. And I wasn’t that kind of business guy. So I went back to Humber College in Toronto because I had always had a love of radio, particularly music radio. And I spent a year in their certificate program doing radio broadcasting. And this would be 1989, 1990 had some great teachers there. Learned all about the inner workings of radio and formats and production, writing, sales and got myself as an intern at Tele-media broadcasting, which was actually the rights holder for the Toronto Blue Jays radio. But at the time I got in there, I didn’t realize that that was going to be anything to do with me because I was interested in music and music radio. I wanted to be a disc jockey, but I learned fairly quickly that the real job security in media is not necessarily in front of the microphone, but behind it. And I set my path into operations, which I really enjoyed all the sort of technical aspects and scheduling and all that kind of stuff.
John Melville: And where I was working was actually very sports intensive, so I was able to be around for the launch of the sports radio format in Toronto in, I think, 1991, which was the fan sports radio at the time. Met a lot of the people that are involved with sports broadcasting today that are very familiar household names. They were we were all kind of just young people at that time kind of trying something new And then after about five years of that, I joined the Score television network when they were launching in 1996. Spent four years there, and that’s where I got my exposure to television production. And I spent. So I now have a hybrid kind of TV guy, radio guy which is a little bit unique. But I found the application of both to be very very good for me in terms of career fulfillment and also types of jobs that I was able to get. One of the highlights that I had in my career was in 2005, I was became part of the satellite radio launch in Canada with XM radio, which is now Sirius XM radio.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Yes.
John Melville: And we were the Canadian version of what is mainly a US broadcaster. And they have, you know, 150 channels of music and talk. We were producing 20 channels in Canada and we had to build studios and I was involved in that. I loved it. It was like old days of radio again that I’d learned about when I was at Humber, and I was there till 2011, and when I was actually, it was just before their merger. And my old boss from. Well, he’s not an old guy, but he was my previous boss, I should say, who had worked with me at XM radio. Ross Davies former program director of Chum-fm. He had suggested that I might want to reach out because Army was actually looking for a director of production production, and he thought my skills might be worthwhile to them. So I reached out to the recruiter, and one thing led to another, as they say, and I ended up starting my career with Army. And that’s what I’m saying. At the beginning, I had no idea at the time that my career would converge around accessibility and disability. But when I joined Army in 2011, everything made sense.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: That’s when we met shortly.
John Melville: Actually, it was right at the very beginning because I was moving fairly quickly when I walked in the doors of Army they were looking actually, they had hired David Harrington a couple of years before me as their CEO. They had previously been known as tech TV, the Accessible Channel. Right. And David was brought in in 2009 when the Army TV channel was launched to basically, you know, modernize and reinvent this, this network, which was providing great service to people from the blind and partially sighted community through the audio channel Voiceprint. And now they had this new TV channel which was adding audio description to TV shows that they were buying. And essentially putting audio description on them. And the problem was that there weren’t a lot of people that were in the organization at that time that knew a lot about how the broadcasting industry works. So David was brought in, and he and I had actually worked together at the school. It was coincidental that we ended up back in the same place. But David was my boss when I joined. He still is today. And it was really an opportunity for us to apply all the learning that we had had in our careers to that point in time to this new, emerging accessible channel and to reinvent Voiceprint, which at the time which became Ami audio into something that would become more relevant to the community that we’re destined to serve.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: You were part of the team that launched Canada’s first all sports talk station at the fan 500, and later helped build the Score television network from the ground up. So from my perspective as a blind sportsman, live coverage is all about sound and description. How did those early sports projects shape the way you think about making fast moving content understandable and and engaging for everyone?
John Melville: Well, it’s an interesting question. And when I was at Telemedia, they had the radio rights for the Toronto Maple Leafs and for the Toronto Blue Jays. So it was basically Leafs in winter, Blue Jays in summer, and there was a bit of overlap, but we figured that out. And essentially, as you know, baseball goes like every night during the season. And we had games running from beginning of March for spring training right through until. And at that time, the Jays were in the World Series in 91, 90 or 92, 93. So we were we were doing this right up until the end of October. What I had found you know, there and became kind of ingrained into me as a lover of radio was the, the picture that was drawn. And I will say, and it will probably talk a little bit more about him in a, you know, as we go through this, that the Blue Jays radio at that time was it was Tom cheek and Jerry Howarth were the play by play guys. And they also did the color commentary. Right. So so if Tom is calling the ball game or the inning, you know, strikes and balls and, you know, line drives and the whole bit, Jerry is providing all the other description around that. So he is a wonderful day at the ballpark. You know, we’ve got the flags blowing off in right field and that ball that just flied out guy with a red hat in the seats over there is with his daughter.
John Melville: Caught the ball. It was kind of like that. And I know that a lot of people still listen to the baseball broadcast, but I do. Yeah, it really is kind of theater of the mind, right? You don’t need to have the TV up in front of it. And it’s an interesting little tidbit here is when Joe Carter hit the home run the famous home run, you know, touch em all, Joe. You’ll never hit another home run like that. That was actually Tom’s call on radio. But he writes to the Jays at that time were when they were in the playoffs were held by the Americans. I think it was CBS at that time. And what they did was they took for Canada. They took the when they clipped the highlight, they took Tom’s radio call and put it with the TV clip because it was so much better. Okay. And that to me was something that through both the score and through the Telemedia stage with the Jays and the Leafs, that I really kind of got a handle on where radio, sound meets pictures, television and how the two really need to work together so that everybody can be included in the broadcast. And it’s really what we kind of go on to do at Ami is filling in the the visuals with either sound like natural sound, like the sound of the bat hitting the ball.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Right.
John Melville: Or description. So sports is a very good playing field, if I can use that analogy for the big picture in broadcasting as to making it accessible for everyone.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Wow. You’ve worked across so many corners of the industry. Telemedia CHUM Satellite Radio at X Canada and now at EMI. So when you look back over that journey, what were a couple of turning point moments that nudge you toward making accessibility a central part of your work, rather than just another box to tick?
John Melville: Well, I sort of alluded to it a little bit already, and that is, you know, my unique experience being able to work in television and also in radio. And, you know, the, the, the, the visuals that we have on television. And I mentioned to you earlier that I originally got into film. You know, I was a big fan of, you know, great directors like Kubrick, Lumet, you know and the films from the 70s. I thought cinema was fantastic in that era when I was growing up. And for me, that a couple of turning points was definitely you know, being having the honor and privilege of being able to work as an engineer alongside Jerry Howarth. You know, when I realized that my music career as a disc jockey wasn’t really going to happen because I’d landed in a sports network. Right. I would call that a turning point, you know? And had that not happened to me, I would never have got the exposure that I got that would set me up later life. To understand how audio and pictures need to work together to deliver the full package, and not just to people who are blind and partially sighted. The whole point is that it’s something that everybody can benefit from. You know, even if you can see what’s going on on the field, there’s so much more information that you’re going to get through the audio presentation as well. You know, it’s almost like you have two tracks, you have visuals and you have audio. And what we do with audio, especially in things like baseball, is really make that, you know, something that connects people and gives the full picture. So the pictures become secondary. So that would be the one turning point. The other turning point was I was spent a bit of time at CHUM.
John Melville: We tried to launch another sports network with CHUM back in 2001. Some people might remember the Team Sports Radio Network. It didn’t last very long and we all got laid off. But that’s another story. It happens. And I went to work with John Bitove company who at that time he was owner of Prism brands, which was KFC, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut and my my former boss, who I tended to travel around with a bit from job to job. Paul Williams had brought me along with him to prison, and we were at that time, we were working on things like digital signage, and I was so far away from my first love of media that it was like, oh my goodness, will I ever get back. And fate took a turn there, and it just so happened that John Bitove was also one of the applicants for the XM radio license, which was granted in 2005. And so when he realized that Paul and I were radio guys working in his organization, he was like, okay, well, you need to go over here and work with the radio launch. So that was another turning point. And in spite of the fact that I love to work in visual and television and film I always seem to end up gravitating back to radio. So. And I would say that the years I spent with XM were some of the best career years I had so an unexpected turning point. You know, just sometimes you get into something, you wonder if is this the right thing for me? And it all changed. And through a piece of fate, I was back in radio and launching again something that was still around today and is very special.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Now, before you joined Army Accessible Media Inc Army was often treated as a niche service. But when you first walk through the doors at Army, what did you see that made you think we can build something truly different here. And how did you start turning that vision into a concrete strategy?
John Melville: Well, I have to say that it was a shared vision through Army’s board of directors at that time who realized that they had something special with the two licenses for television and for for my audio voiceprint. It was also when they brought my my current boss, David Errington, on board. And he was able to take that vision that the board had and essentially consolidate the brand. Right. Because they had TAC TV, they had voiceprint.
John Melville: And there was a bit of a, yeah, a marketing push required to basically say, you know, we are the accessible channel and we are accessible in audio and in television and in description. So that was kind of what was put in front of me when I joined the organization, how that was the goal. You know, we we need to consolidate this brand and make it a player in Canadian media, meaning that it’s not so niche that nobody’s ever going to hear about it. You really have to make a conscious attempt to the old term in boxing. Punch above your weight. Because if we just sit back and continue doing. You know, reading newspapers and magazines or just putting description onto old content. That’s a very limited trajectory in terms of, you know, growth and where the where the network is going to go. What I realized when I came into the organization was, you know, the opportunity and I, you know, there was a slogan that TAC TV used to use before it was MTV was television. That includes everyone. And I always liked that because for me, that was kind of. Well, there’s the mission statement right there. You mentioned Niche channel, right? Yes. And what what niche kind of says to me is like, it’s a specialty. It’s like for people that only want this type of content. And you could say that about Army. You could say it’s just about description or it’s just about reading newspapers.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Right. Right.
John Melville: Right. But for us, it was like, what we want to do is make this something that is relevant to everyone, relevant to people from the disability community, relevant to their families, relevant to people who have an understanding or want to have an understanding of what goes on in the disability community, what it is like to have a disability and be working in a barrier, you know, not barrier free. I know that you’re involved in that. But, you know, certainly at that time, new legislation coming out with respect to the Accessibility Act, with building codes, you know, the the awareness of all that was something that I think that am I tried to build into its DNA so that because we’re distributed right across Canada into every home that has basic cable We wanted to make sure that we were reaching audiences that were listening or wanted to listen to what we had to say. And it wasn’t that we were telling people what to do or what to say. We were looking for creators and people who are involved in advocacy. And I think that’s how you and I met who have a platform to tell their story. Right. And but the Army entity is something I think it is. It’s television that includes everyone.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: You know, and I I’m listening to you here, boy. I really feel as if I’ve traveled a long road with you since 2011, and I’m very pleased and privileged to have been part of this journey, you know.
John Melville: But it’s been a thrill. Yeah. Remember when we had the the the governor general?
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Oh, yes.
John Melville: In the debates? Yes, there were some high points there. Yeah.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: I mean, we’ve been involved in so many different aspects, you know, like live in studio, how it works, all these different things. And I, I learned a lot. I learned a lot under your tutelage and with your team, you know.
John Melville: Yes.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: So MIT is now recognized as the first network, as the first network in the world to offer all of its programming with open described video as a blind viewer. This is huge. So can you walk us through the thinking and the risks behind that decision and what it took operationally to make open description the default instead of a special feature?
John Melville: Sure. That’s a big question. I’ll try and and slice it down a bit because there’s a lot in it. But just to give it some focus, I would start by saying that it the genesis of the the channel came from the Broadcasting Act. There’s the clause in the Broadcasting Act nine, one clause. And I think it’s 91HH now they’ve added another h. Yes. That said, you know, channels will be given or applicant channels will be given carriage across Canada through mandatory subscriber fees that will be collected by the cable companies. And those channels have to demonstrate they are of exceptional importance to the Canadian public. And there’s a couple of obvious examples that are also 91H along with Ami. It was for example, APTN. Right. So we don’t necessarily know where indigenous people in Canada live. We don’t know where people who are blind and partially sighted live in Canada. In other words, you know, you could be anywhere. You could be in the Yukon, you could be in Quebec, you could be in Vancouver Island. So the only way to reach you, according to Parliament, is that the channel has to be available to everyone on the basic tier, right? So our board prior to Ami launching looked at this channel of exceptional importance. And one of our members, I believe, was Betty Noble was.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Part of the.
John Melville: Original launch team. This would be probably around 2006. Said, well, we should apply for a license because what we want to be able to do, because regular television is not offering description. They’re not offering DV. Yeah. Yes. As you pointed out what little DV there was, you know, that you could find had to be turned on using this complicated menu system on your.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Oh yeah.
John Melville: Yeah. Right. So their approach was if we put DV on everything that we have will, you know, and just say to say to the CRTC we’re not we’re going to put it right onto the programs. We’re not going to make people have to turn it on or off. So I suppose if you don’t like DV, the downside is if you’re watching Ami content, you’re always going to have description. Because it’s available all the time. So it wasn’t that difficult from a production point of view to put it on. Right. Because we were essentially bypassing the system that said, you know, it’s got to go in this menu on this line and all this kind of stuff. So that was relatively straightforward. I mean, we did have to write and voice all the description for the shows because anything we were buying we had to describe for the first time, that was part of Crtc’s condition of licence for us at the time.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Right. Right.
John Melville: And the CRTC will, when they give you a license, will add conditions that say, you know, you have to spend X number of dollars on Canadian content production. You have to ensure that, you know, everything is openly described. And by meeting those conditions, you are now classified as A91 channel, which is going to get distribution throughout the basic tier. And thus your funding formula comes in in the form of I think it was $0.10 per subscriber which is part of the sub fee that they collect on the monthly cable bills. Right. So we would get that $0.10. And that gave us our production budget to buy the content, to produce the DV and run any of our administration side of things. Obviously, you know, we have master control, we have employees. You know, there’s a there’s a structure in there as well that makes all this stuff happen. So the technical aspect was actually quite straightforward. We’ve since evolved a bit. So we we looked at it and we started to say, you know, sometimes the DV isn’t that great or it’s a bit redundant on a show, meaning.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: It’s.
John Melville: Almost fighting with the dialogue. Right? There’s not great places to put it in. So I think it was around 2013 that we started to experiment with integrated described video, which is essentially when we write the show, and this tends to be more for the original content that we now create, as opposed to the content we would buy. Because once you buy content, it’s already made, so you can only put description on it.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Okay.
John Melville: For stuff that you’re actually making for the first time, you can actually write the program in a way that the person who’s presenting is able to describe as they’re presenting. So you don’t need to have that second voice involved. So it wasn’t that difficult to do it. And it’s probably more difficult to turn it off now because all of our content has DV or DV in it. And, you know, I think that’s a good thing. We’ve had a couple of shows that have aired on CBC with ITV. One of them being you can’t ask that. That was all produced with ITV and the CRTC recognized when we developed ITV that this was a form of open description. So it’s something that we’ve been working with and, you know, we will put description on when we feel it’s necessary. And we’re always evaluating the content that we produce to make sure that it’s accessible to a blind or partially sighted person. And that is done in a way where our DV specialists will look at the content, meaning they’ll listen to it twice without any pictures that they are understanding everything that’s going on.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: This is so technical. I mean, it’s so in-depth. You know. One of the projects many of us remember is Amis described broadcasts of the Toronto Blue Jays games as someone who grew up listening to sports on the radio. I’m fascinated by the blend of play by play and description. So how did that partnership come together, and what did you learn from trying to make live, professional sports fully accessible for fans with vision loss?
John Melville: So we I mentioned that you know, both David and I had been working with the Blue Jays at. I was working with them at Telemedia, and then I worked with them with David at The Score, because the score also had rights to Blue Jays radio after Telemedia let, let them go. So we both had the opportunity to work with it, and we both worked with Tom cheek and Jerry Howarth in the radio divisions. When we both arrived at EMI we were talking about, you know the opportunity to take a weekend broadcast of the Blue Jays, say, a Saturday afternoon. And let’s try adding description, live description to it. We’d done some live description already with the royal wedding. Prince William and Kate Middleton. Yeah, we were the first to do that, even ahead of BBC, who actually were the host broadcaster of that. But we thought, you know, live description. Well, what can we add to it? Essentially it was the missing piece that, you know, I mentioned earlier that we we had, you know, a radio clip running with the TV highlights when you hear the Joe Carter call. Yeah. But we looked at the Jays and said if we were to add a third voice, so we’ve got the play by play person, we’ve got the color person. What if we add a third voice in there who can, you know, fill in any blanks that are still taking place because people are there watching the TV. They’re not listening to the radio in this case. So we approached Sportsnet and we made a deal with Sportsnet to acquire the games from them.
John Melville: And we literally had a describer who would sit and watch the game as the play by play team for Sportsnet were calling it, and anything that was missed would be added in by the describer. And these describers were sports broadcasters too. We had Sam Cosentino was involved in it. People may know him from his junior hockey on Sportsnet Jim Van Horne. One of the TSN originals and Jim has since gone on to work with NBC on describing the Olympic Games when they had the rights. So that was kind of how it all came about. And we did that for a few years. It was actually it was it was an interesting sort of time for us where we were trying different things, and it was well received by the blind and partially sighted community who were watching those games. You know, but the problem that we it’s not sustainable because unless Sportsnet makes a a product that’s more descriptive, it’s too expensive for us to be doing that, you know, for 162 games of the year. So we did it. And I think Sportsnet have, you know, picked up a few tips from the times when we did that to potentially make those games. I think Dan and Buck do a great job now of, you know, doing the play by play and full description probably better than it was back then when we started doing the DV for the Jays.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: The series you can’t ask that invites people with disabilities to answer the uncomfortable questions others often think but never say aloud. So from your seat, why was it important for Army to bring that format to Canadian audiences, and how do you see it helping to dismantle this terror, the stereotypes and artificial barriers that so many of us face all the time.
John Melville: The So a lot of the shows that come to us come from producers who are working with creators and have developed an idea. Right. So this producer came from Edmonton. This idea actually came through CBC originally. And the producer had pitched CBC on the idea and CBC were were the original producer or broadcaster for that show, and they did two seasons of that, and they offered us to come in with them on that. So this happens sometimes where we get collaboration on it. And I think it was interesting because CBC, being a mainstream broadcaster for all Canadians as well recognized to the points you were making about the tone of the show that, you know, this maybe does make people feel uncomfortable, but the it’s okay to ask these questions, right? It’s okay to hear the answers to those questions. We we did three seasons all together on that show, and it was just a very popular format. I think it sort of broke the ice for people and let people know that it was okay to have, you know, a conversation with somebody with a disability like you. You know, if you’re curious you can ask questions, right? And there’s a lot of sort of predetermined sort of thought processes that people have, you know, where it leads.
John Melville: We call it prejudice, right? Where it leads to. You know, I’ve already figured out the answer, even without asking the person. Right. And that’s kind of what you can’t ask that I think was able to sort of break down was, you know what? There’s a different story from the perspective of the person with the disability, and maybe you need to hear it. And then when everybody hears it, they’re kind of laughing and saying, oh, you know, it wasn’t wasn’t as bad as I thought, you know, and it’s okay to to understand that because this is the way it is, right? So yeah, I think that was we do many different shows and, and they all have kind of a different angle, but that was one I think that a lot of people saw because it was also on CBC and it’s still running today. It’s going to be going up on our YouTube channel in the spring. So if you haven’t seen it on my TV, we’re going to be making all our content available on YouTube as well.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Wow. So the clock is starting to wind down. But I got this question for you. Access to technology is such a big part of independence for blind and partially sighted people with access to tech live, you have created a weekly space dedicated to accessible and mainstream tech. What gap did you see in the media landscape that this show was designed to fill, and how have viewers responded? So far?
John Melville: The gap okay, so I think it was I’m just going to tell a little story here because it goes back to a discussion. I was over in Scotland at Rnib radio, and I met a gentleman there who was working on the Rnib morning show, and it was a bit like Ami Audio’s you know, he they were reading newspapers and things like that. Right. And I’m like, this is interesting. So we just wanted to see how they did things. The gentleman Stephen Scott, who is probably well known to Ami listeners now you know, was very interested in technology. He was he is blind. He was partially sighted. But you know, I believe he still is partially sighted, but he has degenerative eye disease, so his sight is not improving at all. And Steven was is a big proponent. He’s always the guy out there with the first iPhone. He’s, you know, he’s checking all the accessibility features. And I hooked him up with another producer that I’ve been working with for years, Marc Aflalo. And said, Marc, you should talk to Steven because Marc had a tech show running here. It was just a standard technology show radio show. And, you know, you should talk to Steven because I think there might be a fit here for us being able to focus the technology, show more on the technology, the the the ability for technology to assist people with disabilities. And many times a lot of that technology exists by accident.
John Melville: So something like Siri, for example, was not developed for people who are blind and partially sighted. It was developed for the general population, but it became much more valuable to people who are blind and partially sighted in its first iteration, because it was something that this is we’ve been waiting for something like this, right? But Apple didn’t necessarily develop it for that reason. And what Steven was able to do was shine a light on technology that was really starting to break ground and with with the disability community. And I was over in Scotland at the Tech Share Europe, I believe it was in 2018, and we did a presentation on our live description, which I was talking about a little earlier. I was talking about the Blue Jays, and Stephen was there too. And what we noticed was all the big tech companies Google, Apple Panasonic. We’re all there as well to learn about the needs of people who are blind and partially sighted. It was primarily around the people who need media assistance, and it generally is blind and partially sighted, and people who are deaf or hard of hearing that require most assistance with their media consumption. Right. Because you need to have captioning, you need to have ASL. You need to have description. You know, these are the tools that are required so that you can access that media.
John Melville: And so Stephen and Mark came to us with a show idea that we’re going to do this weekly show. It started actually on Ami audio with Double Tap Canada which a lot of people are familiar with. And Double Tap is still running. Yes. And it’s been going now for seven, eight years. That’s more of a weekly kind of long form drop in. Let’s talk about tech kind of show, but it’s always about accessible tech and access. Tech live was kind of the video version of that, and we streamed it on YouTube and it was made available on the audio platform like a radio show. So the importance of technology is always something that’s in the sort of bull’s eye for Ami TV and Ami audio, because it is one of the most important pieces of assistance that somebody who is trying to consume media or trying to make a phone call or trying to type a text, the easier that that can be made for them is, you know, where we’re evolving to now. And when you hear about the next things like you know, artificial intelligence, AI, you know, and things like that, it’s an ongoing discussion. It’s an ongoing story. And what Ami wants to do is put people with disabilities right at the front end of that technology so that they’re the first to hear about it and how it can help them in their lives.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Is there any room for the good old. You know, when I first became involved with with ami and yourself, like, you know, I had the detective DJ series, is there any room for, you know, like good old storytelling shows on Army still, or are you going more toward technology and you know, the way you’re going right now.
John Melville: The way we’re going right now is actually into larger productions on the TV side. What we’re trying to do and the industry is, is is, you know, being incentivized to enable producers and broadcasters to kind of come together and produce really high impact shows. We want to expand audience. We want to expand our reach. We need to get outside our own ecosystem, unfortunately, because in spite of the fact that we’re carried along, you know, all the cable channels in Canada, all the cable companies in Canada, there’s only about 50% of Canadians, 60% of Canadians actually subscribe to cable now. And they generally are people who are of an older age, you know Gen Xers boomers, But millennials and Zoomers, you know, they’re on, you know, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook streaming apps. The the whole industry has become much more diversified. So, as you know, you might not be able to watch a show. None of us can watch a show if you don’t have a subscription to, you know, Paramount, right? And we just say, okay, well, I guess I’m not watching that show because I can’t afford to pay $9 or $12 a month for that streaming app because I’ve already got Netflix. But Amazon, if I’m lucky and, you know, there’s a dozen others out there. So what we’re trying to do is create those high impact shows that are going to be able to be seen on, you know, apps or networks that are going to be easily accessible to people like CBC, you know like YouTube. The idea of our storytelling, though is, is not something that has gone away. In fact, we’ve been working a lot recently on the audio side, which has always been kind of the place where people who are blind and partially sighted can come to.
John Melville: Although we still do some reading on the channel, we have, you know, The Walrus, The Guardian the Globe Mail is read just as it was. That’s part of what we’ve always said we would do. They also have a new show called reflections. They have the Ami audio book review. What we’re trying to do is, I guess what you’re doing here with this podcast is, you know, have somebody come on, who is able to talk about an issue or talk about something, you know, their career or something that they’re doing. And so what you’re doing with your podcast, I think is, is a classic example of kind of where things are going. The because of the technology now with book reading you know, in the last few years, it’s come a long way. And now we have again AI getting involved in it. It’s a way of, you know, there’s more and more access to being able to read a book online. So the old form of radio drama, things like that, it’s still a very niche piece right now, and it’s probably something that would have success on YouTube, you know, because you, you stand on your own two feet on YouTube. You know, if it’s something people want, they will watch it. Right. And I mean, you can still produce it and have 400 views. And if you’re reaching that audience, that’s great. But for us, we are definitely looking at sort of, you know, we’re trying to invest the little bit of money we have into leveraging high impact productions so that we can continue to open these doors for a wider audience of people with disabilities.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: What are your final thoughts as we wind down this podcast. John, I know you’ve taken us through an immense journey, you know, from start to finish here. I mean, I’ve learned so much about, you know, who you are and what you’ve done in the past and you know, your your profile at the Army. What are your final thoughts as to what would the immediate future be for the next 3 to 5 years at Army?
John Melville: Well, I’ll tag it on to what I was just saying about the High Impact productions. And one thing we didn’t talk about. So I’m going to talk about it now in this last question, is the importance of incorporating people with disabilities into the creation of the content that Army produces. So I sit here with you now as I’m, you know, I’m not partially sighted, but I’m certainly my eyesight is not getting any better, but I’m certainly not identifying with somebody as somebody with a disability. And I think that’s important that, you know, that we don’t muddy that water too much because, you know, I think that it it can hurt others if you know, somebody coming forward with a disability and they’re kind of like, oh, you know, I’ve got a disability. I’m not to tell you what it is. Right. Which is fair enough. But the importance of understanding the connection that we have with people with disabilities and, you know, their perception of being included in content. So we’ve been doing a lot of work with mentoring. We have an apprentice program in place at Ami. We’ve had three apprentices go through in the last two years. More than that, actually. But three of the apprentices that went through in the last three years have pitched program ideas to us two of which have already gone into production.
John Melville: One of his the show from Ottawa game on. Another one is adapting which is a new scripted show we’re doing in BC, and we have a children’s show in Saskatoon. Sorry. Regina called how we do, how we do it. Sorry. How we do it that’s coming this fall. The the whole idea, though, is that people with disabilities, we are army. If we are anything now in the, you know, 2025, 2026, we are the one place that can mentor and teach people who are interested in media, who want to have a career in media, either in front of the camera or behind the camera. In production and production management. We are the people that can do that. And companies like CBC, Bell, Rogers, you know Cogeco tell us who all do production when they are looking for people and productions that they are interested in making content around. You know, it’s our hope that they can maybe have somebody that experienced army in that way, in that mentoring way, come through that door. And we’ve already seen it happen. We we’ve got a couple of people that have gone on to CDC and have had shows at CBC that worked at am I this is really, you know, where I see us going now and, and in relation to those high impact shows, the, the new one that I was talking about adapting, which we’re producing in Vancouver the young lady who is the creator identifies with the disability from the blind, partially sighted community.
John Melville: You know, she has she has created something that we want to really do justice to. We and we have a great production company working with her to realize this production, and it’s a significant cost. This, you know, we are I wouldn’t say we’re taking a gamble on it, because I think it’s going to be a great show because everybody feels so positive about it. And we also produce something with Jenny Bovaird just recently, Pretty Blind, which was also a scripted. So taking some chances. But at the core of all our content, you are going to see people with disabilities in front of the camera and behind the camera and ultimately calling the shots. I mean, you know, if probably shouldn’t say this, but it’s true. You know, my goal is to be replaced by somebody who can better advocate for the disability community with the skills and experience that I that I have as well. You know, and that’s what we hope to develop at Ami is people like that.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: John, I’d like to thank you for this interview has been very, very insightful for me and I’m really impressed with what you’ve said. And I think the future looks bright for those who are aspiring to be in front of the camera and behind the camera. And you know, keep up the great work. Go am I go.
John Melville: And, Donna, I just have to say as well, you know, you talked about you and I and how long we go back together. And here we are in 2025. And you have a podcast. I’m your guest. I do have to recognize, you know, you have been a stalwart figure in, you know, the the passion and due diligence to the, you know, what you do for the disability community and for people who are blind and partially sighted. And, you know if you weren’t doing that, we probably wouldn’t be talking today. So it it’s a great honor, as I said at the outset, to to be with you. And I thank you for for reaching out to me because it’s it’s a pleasure to have a chat with you. And it’s been a little while, but I always enjoy it.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: It’s been a pleasure. Come back anytime. If you ever think that you know you want to share something with our listeners, please do not hesitate to reach out to me.
John Melville: I will do, and you the same. Okay. And listen, have a very safe and happy holiday season. However you may celebrate.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: And you too.
John Melville: Best wishes for 2026.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: The same to you, John, and we will stay in touch.
John Melville: You bet. Thanks, Donna.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Thanks, John. Take care.
John Melville: Bye bye.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Bye. Bye now.
Podcast Commentator: Donna wants to hear from you and invites you to write to her at DonnaJodhan@gmail.com. Until next time.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA
Global Leader In Disability Rights, Digital Accessibility, And Inclusive Policy Reform
Turning policy into progress for people with disabilities.
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