Digital Accessibility Named an Industry Priority as MediaScribe Narrate Wins AV Technology Best of Show at InfoComm 2026

MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA, July 21st, 2026 — MediaScribe Narrate has been named a Best of Show winner by AV Technology at InfoComm 2026, signaling that digital accessibility is now a priority for the professional audiovisual industry.

When a city council reviews a budget slide, a planning commission points to a map, or a school board recognizes a student, that visual information disappears for anyone who cannot see the screen. An estimated 8,537,000 Americans were blind or had low vision in 2024, according to the American Foundation for the Blind and the Center for Research on Disability. Automated audio description from Tightrope Media Systems closes that gap by making the meticulous work of describing on-screen visuals scalable for public sector teams for the first time.

Why the win matters

Captioning has become common in government video. Audio description has not. The traditional workflow requires specialized narration resources, long lead times, and budgets most public agencies do not have, so the spoken track that lets blind and low-vision residents follow what is happening on screen has largely been out of reach.

For government media teams, that shift arrives alongside a practical option. MediaScribe Narrate is trained on the visual language of public meetings, including speaker changes, presentation slides, gestures, and audience reactions, and generates draft audio description scripts that editors review and approve before publication. It changes what is achievable for teams that have historically had to choose between accessibility and capacity.

"Accessibility should not depend on whether a city has the budget for a specialist and the calendar to schedule one," said JJ Parker, co-founder and chief executive officer of Tightrope Media Systems. "Audio description has been the hardest part of video accessibility to deliver, and it is the part blind and low-vision residents have waited longest for. What this recognition really says is that the industry now sees audio description as essential work, not an afterthought. We built MediaScribe Narrate so a small team can make its government meetings accessible as a matter of routine, and we are proud to see that work recognized at InfoComm."

Award context

AV Technology named "Tightrope Media Systems MediaScribe Platform with MediaScribe Narrate" a Best of Show winner at InfoComm 2026. The award was announced June 18, 2026, by Cindy Davis, brand and content director at AV Technology, a Future publication. Future's Best of Show Awards are judged by anonymous industry peers on innovation, feature set, value, and application.

InfoComm is the largest professional audiovisual show in North America. Produced by AVIXA, this year's event drew more than 28,000 attendees to the Las Vegas Convention Center.

MediaScribe has picked up other recent recognition, including a Best of Show award at the 2025 NAB Show and a Product of the Year award for MediaScribe Narrate at NAB Show 2026.

Why now

There's a real deadline behind this. Under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) Title II and the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 Level AA, state and local governments need to make their pre-recorded video accessible, and audio description is the piece that captions alone don't cover under WCAG Success Criterion 1.2.5. Larger entities, those serving populations of 50,000 or more, have until April 26, 2027 to comply. Smaller public entities and special district governments have until April 26, 2028. MediaScribe Narrate is built to support that work.

About MediaScribe

MediaScribe is an accessible communication technology platform by Tightrope Media Systems, purpose-built for state and local government. The platform brings captioning, transcription, translation, and audio description into workflows designed for public sector teams and budgets. MediaScribe Narrate automates audio descriptions for pre-recorded and video-on-demand content. MediaScribe Live provides live captioning and real-time translation. Learn more at www.mediascribe.ai.

About Tightrope Media Systems

For more than 25 years, Tightrope Media Systems has provided video distribution and media accessibility solutions that help government and community organizations deliver timely messaging to the right people in the right place at the right time. Its Cablecast community media multiplatform playout automation simplifies video distribution for cable channels, websites, and mobile and over-the-top (OTT) streaming devices. Its MediaScribe accessible communication platform provides captioning, real-time translation, meeting transcription, and audio descriptions. Find out more at www.trms.com or call (612) 866-4118.