About AMI-télé

AMI-télé

Overview

AMI-télé is a Canadian French-language specialty television channel owned and operated by Accessible Media Inc. (AMI), the not-for-profit media company headquartered in Toronto. It is the French-language counterpart of AMI-tv, but it is not a translation or a simulcast of the English service: AMI-télé holds its own CRTC licence, runs its own schedule and commissions its own French-language original programming, much of it produced in Montreal with Quebec production companies. Its defining feature, shared with its English sister, is accessibility by design. Every program on AMI-télé is broadcast with open described video — a narrator's description of the visual action carried on the main audio track, so that viewers who are blind or partially sighted hear the accessible version automatically, without having to find a secondary audio feed — and with closed captioning for viewers who are deaf or hard of hearing.

When it launched, AMI described AMI-télé as the world's first French-language network to present its entire schedule in open described video. The channel is a discretionary service with mandatory distribution: the CRTC has ordered it carried on the basic service of cable, satellite and IPTV providers across Canada, so it reaches francophone viewers in every province rather than only those who subscribe to a specialty tier. AMI-télé programming is also available on demand through AMI+, the company's free streaming platform, and a selection of its original series is carried on Radio-Canada's ICI TOU.TV service. Together with AMI-tv and the AMI-audio reading service, it forms one of the three broadcast services through which AMI gives Canadians with disabilities a voice in the media.

History

AMI-télé grew out of the same accessibility movement that produced its English-language sister. AMI began in 1989 as the National Broadcast Reading Service (NBRS), established after a House of Commons committee report called for equal access to news and information for Canadians with vision or print restrictions. NBRS's described-video channel, The Accessible Channel, launched in January 2009 with mandatory distribution, and the organization renamed itself Accessible Media Inc. in 2010; the English channel became AMI-tv in January 2012. French-speaking Canadians who were blind or partially sighted, however, had no equivalent service in their own language.

AMI applied to extend the model into French through the CRTC's call for applications for mandatory distribution on the basic service. In Broadcasting Decision CRTC 2013-386, issued on 8 August 2013, the Commission approved a national French-language specialty described-video service, to be called AMI-tv Français, under a Category A licence running from 1 September 2013. The CRTC found that broadcasting services for Canadians who are blind or visually impaired were underrepresented in the system, that the record showed an extraordinary need for French-language programming for this audience, and that the new service would fill a void, just as its English-language counterpart did. Supporters from the francophone disability community intervened in favour of the application, and AMI committed to work with that community to shape the service.

The channel launched, under the name AMI-télé, on 16 December 2014. Its launch schedule, announced from Montreal, combined popular Quebec and international series, serials and films — titles such as Les beaux malaises among them — all presented with open described video and closed captioning, with original information and service programming added in the spring of 2015. Philippe Lapointe served as the channel's vice-president of programming and production at launch. In Broadcasting Decision CRTC 2018-319, the CRTC renewed the licences for AMI-tv, AMI-télé and AMI-audio and renewed the orders requiring their mandatory distribution on the basic service. AMI-télé marked its tenth anniversary in December 2024, noting that its inventory of original productions had grown every year; for the 2024-25 season alone it offered more than 14 new original productions.

Programming and Content

AMI-télé's schedule mixes acquired programming with a growing slate of French-language originals, all of it in open described video. The acquired side brings francophone audiences described versions of popular Quebec series, drama, comedy and cinema that would otherwise be inaccessible to blind viewers. The original side is where the channel has built its identity, and its longest-running production is the weekly service magazine Ça me regarde, which entered its thirteenth season in 2026. The program produces 48 episodes a year, is hosted by a person living with a disability — Camille Chai has hosted for the past three years, and earlier hosts included Kéven Breton, who went on to work as a sports journalist at Radio-Canada — and covers the practical, cultural and sporting life of the disability community, from accessible travel and technology to Paralympic sport.

Other originals in the current schedule include Ça ne se demande pas, in which people living with disabilities answer blunt questions from the public on camera; the cooking series Pas de panique, on cuisine!; Les critiques atypiques, which sends food critics with disabilities to review restaurants; the documentary series Nos champions paralympiques and Des familles comme les autres; and Tous en chœur, in which Gregory Charles leads community choirs of people living with dementia or Alzheimer's disease and their caregivers — its first season aired in the autumn of 2025 and a second season followed in September 2026. The drama À propos d'Antoine, centred on a young man living with multiple disabilities and his family, also appears in the channel's schedule.

AMI-télé's breakthrough in scripted programming is Vestiaires, a sketch comedy set in a swimming club whose members live with disabilities. Produced by Sphère Média in collaboration with Radio-Canada and the Canada Media Fund, and adapted from the French series of the same name created by Fabrice Chanut and Adda Abdelli, it was the channel's first original fiction series and, by AMI's account, its most popular. It has been nominated for Prix Gémeaux in categories including best comedy series, direction, writing and ensemble performance, and it won a Rockie Award at the Banff World Media Festival for comedy in a language other than English. A third season is scheduled for the spring of 2026, and the series' second season was also broadcast on ICI TÉLÉ and ICI TOU.TV in the autumn of 2025 — an unusual crossover for a specialty channel of AMI-télé's size, and a sign of how far its originals travel beyond the channel itself.

Audience and Reach

AMI-télé serves French-speaking Canadians who are blind or partially sighted, together with viewers who are deaf or hard of hearing and rely on its captioning. That audience is concentrated in Quebec but exists across the country, and mandatory distribution on the basic tier puts the channel into francophone homes on every major television platform rather than behind a specialty paywall; some distributors place it at an easy-to-find position such as channel 888. Because its programming is fully described and captioned on the main feed, it is also watched by sighted family members and by a broader public drawn to its original series — the crossover success of Vestiaires on Radio-Canada's platforms and the channel's growing slate of originals have steadily widened its profile within Quebec television.

AMI does not publish ratings for the channel, and no audience figure is claimed here. Its reach is better measured by its structural position in the broadcasting system — a guaranteed place on the basic service nationwide — and by AMI's stated mission: to entertain, inform and empower people living with disabilities through authentic storytelling, faithful representation and a positive portrayal of the disability community, in both of Canada's official languages.

Digital Presence

AMI-télé's online home is amitele.ca, the French-language site within AMI's web presence, carrying its schedules, program pages and news. Its original programming is available after broadcast on AMI+, the company's free streaming platform and mobile app, which carries the AMI services' catalogues in accessible players. A selection of AMI-télé originals, including Vestiaires and À propos d'Antoine, is also streamed on ICI TOU.TV, Radio-Canada's platform; by 2026 the channel's programs had been available there for five years, which AMI-télé's programming leadership has credited with significantly extending their reach. The channel maintains a presence on the social platforms used by AMI's French-language services, where clips and program promotion circulate beyond the broadcast audience.

Ownership and Organisation

AMI-télé is owned and operated by Accessible Media Inc., a not-for-profit organization controlled by its board of directors and headquartered in Toronto, Ontario. AMI operates three broadcast services — AMI-tv and AMI-audio in English and AMI-télé in French — plus the AMI+ streaming platform. Within that structure AMI-télé has its own programming leadership and a production base in Montreal, where its originals are developed with Quebec producers such as Sphère Média. At launch the channel was overseen by Philippe Lapointe as vice-president of programming and production, under AMI president and CEO David Errington; by the mid-2020s its content development and programming were led by vice-president Isabella Federigi. The channel's commissions are supported by the Canada Media Fund and, for series such as Vestiaires, by production partnerships with Radio-Canada, reflecting a model in which a small specialty service co-produces with the public broadcaster to put disability-led stories on screen in French.

Contact and Availability

AMI-télé is available across Canada on the basic service of cable, satellite and IPTV providers, as ordered by the CRTC, and its programming can be streamed free of charge on AMI+ at amiplus.ca and through the AMI+ mobile app; selected originals are also on ICI TOU.TV. Program schedules and channel information are published at amitele.ca. Accessible Media Inc. is based in Toronto, Ontario, with AMI-télé's production activity centred in Montreal, Quebec.