91Èȱ¬

... two come along at once.

We're getting into 'awards season' now the year is closing. Last night was a particularly busy night for awards with a disability theme.

We'll start with the Cultural Diversity Networks inaugural awards ceremony at Channel 4's Horseferry Road offices in central London. The evening was hosted by comedian Alan Carr - not averse to a bit of diversity himself - and amongst the winners were 91Èȱ¬ Storyville's rockumentary about learnie punk band Heavyload (Met Film Ltd, HI8US) under the 'Excellence in creative output - diverse content' category.

Listen to an interview and live performance from them, originally featured on our talk show while they were filming.

For more details about the event and other nominees and winners check out the .

Over at BAFTA were the 2009 Mind Mental Health Media Awards hosted by comedian Shappi Khorsandi. Huge congratulations to OUCH! contributor Seaneen Molloy for her factual drama 'Do's and don'ts for the mentally interesting' (91Èȱ¬ Radio 4) based on her almost legendary and perhaps way too honest blog.

Amongst the other winners were: 91Èȱ¬ Newsnight, Alastair Campbell's documentary 'Cracking Up' (part of the 91Èȱ¬ Headroom campaign). And big soap EastEnders received the prestigious 'Making a Difference' award. A list of all the winners can be found on

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Google has announced this week two new subtitling features for YouTube: which use speech recognition technology to automatically create and time subtitles.

This could finally open up the world of web-video to deaf viewers, by making it far quicker and easier for producers to add subtitles without specialist knowledge. It's true, as Charlie Swinbourne's Subtitle Diary showed on Ouch! the technology is currently far from 100% accurate, but with 20 hours of video a minute currently being added to YouTube alone, it should mean a big improvement.

But I would argue the real driver behind this is search. By adding subtitles search engines can understand much more about the content of videos, potentially jumping to the moment in the video a certain keyword is spoken. In short: subtitles have far more uses than just for deaf people.

The 91Èȱ¬ is using similar speech-to-text technology on its new comprehensive politics site Democracy Live to search videos of parliamentary proceedings. It could now spring up all over the place and whatever the motive, create a much more accessible web for deaf people.

Disability culture is clearly on the rise this week.

- the charity which promotes equal access to music venues and festivals - is branching out a little further. They start their own music and talk show on Central London's award-winning arts radio station resonance FM.

Here at the 91Èȱ¬ we would boringly call this a 'brand extension' but the hoped-for knock on effect is that more people will get to hear about the charity's work and the wider aim to get more disabled people to gigs and get involved with music.

Attitude is Everything also run regular events - bringing disabled and non-disabled talent together in fully accessible venues. Previous Headliners include The Mystery Jets, Art Brut, Foals, Princess Headbutt, The Rock of Travolta and 80's Matchbox B-line Disaster.

Their first radio show is at 11pm tonight, 24 November 2009 and features live music from the excellent disabled band Al Cool and the Stranger Wines.

In a press release, AIE says: "We will be talking about the current issues affecting Deaf and disabled artists and audiences, choosing our favourite tracks by disabled artists and revealing our plans for the next two Club Attitude events"

Resonance FM can be heard on 104.4FM in the Central London area and also .

Al Cool and the Stranger Wines can be heard playing out on The June edition of Ouch's Talk Show

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We've been very excited about the much-talked about Cast Offs comedy mockumentary described as being 'groundbreaking'. It's a spoof reality show where disabled contestants are left to fend for themselves on an island. Cast-away ... Cast Offs ... get it? Tonight, Channel 4, 11pm.

It's hard to take disability projects too seriously when they have the G-word attached to them because typically they've been far removed from the daily experiences of disabled people. All very well and good, many of Ouch's messageboarders say, but if that's all there is on TV then we're all being poorly represented which isn't breaking new ground. When such programmes air, we rarely get feedback from disabled people here at Ouch ... but we do get hundreds of emails from people touched by the disability stories they've seen, and wanting to help.

The 91Èȱ¬'s Beyond Boundaries reality trekking endurance show was criticised by many for failing to show well rounded disabled characters in their daily lives - something felt to be much lacking in the TV schedules. In the Ouch! office we've understood for some time that Channel 4 have been keen to mercilessly rip it to pieces. And seemingly that's what Cast Offs is set to do.

Whereas disabled people on BB were seen to trek across jungles and deserts, in one scene Cast Offs reportedly shows a wheelchair user taking hours to try and get out of a sand dune. Wheelchairs and sand don't mix too well and courage, determination and bravery are not the words we'd reach for when stuck in a flippin' dune.

Will it be groundbreaking? The sheer number of disabled actors in a twice weekly drama is already a groundbreaking step forward. Two disabled writers bringing their own experiences to the table is pretty groundbreaking too. And two disabled writers creating a disability drama series is indeed groundbreaking as far as we can tell.

See Hear blog: Deaf actress in Cast Offs plus another similar show in production from Ash Atalla

When Channel 4 news finished last Tuesday and Jon Snow said goodnight, the next thing I saw was a trailer for the show where the word spastic was used almost immediately. I wonder how many suppertime viewers choked as they heard it. Disabled people often use the word as a term of comradery or to describe a stereotypical por media disability image; it wasn't used in an offensive way and I personally hope Ofcom doesn't receive letters about it.

So who's going to watch? Gawpers? Comedy fans? Ultra liberal occupational therapists who will then write a round robin email about it the next morning? And ... disabled people themselves?

There's a hell of a lot of disabled people in the UK ... and ya know what ... a lot of them watch an awful lot of telly. Figures say around 10 million, and they have an 80 billion pound spend annually, and programme makers, with these kinds of potential viewing figures, should be minded to aim shows in their direction with some good basic disability knowledge and contributions on board to draw them in.

Cast Offs is on Channel 4 Tuesday and Wednesday nights at 11pm for the next three weeks.

• Mat Fraser and Kiruna Stamell, stars of the show, have presented our monthly Talk Show together many times. Download or listen to the show here.

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• Read in today's Independent. Find out what a group of disabled viewers think of the show after a sneak preview.