Our Mission is to create an inclusive, mainstream television channel serving as a mass media presence for people with disabilities offering access into our community to the world.
We feel these two worlds are actually one, divided by unnecessary, artificial and arbitrary barriers. The desire for access, inclusion, and interaction is a universal impulse felt by all people, with or without disabilities.
By uniting people with disabilities and those desiring to enjoy our social intercourse, share our cultural perspective, understand our political agenda, and address our broad general and specific consumer needs, we will achieve success.
That success is a means for the economic, cultural, and political empowerment of people with disabilities worldwide through ownership, employment, training, information, entertainment, and inclusion in the world’s mass media. Only with control do people have opportunity to cast their own image and forge their own path. That control is our Mission.
The Mission... To develop a mainstream media company broadcasting accessible content of, by, and for people with disabilities...and everyone else.
The Business... A cable TV channel, supported by a media rich website and Video-on-Demand (VOD) service, providing accessible programming attracting persons with disabilities and others. [with]tv will be the premier provider of disability-themed programming on existing cable television networks, as well as on next generation broadband video delivery vehicles such as Internet Protocol Television (IPTV).
The Market... Includes over 54 million Americans with disabilities, their families, friends, and communities. The market includes all ethnic demographics, age, and socio-economic groups, and encompasses a large portion of the “Baby Boomer” demographic (according to AARP, 4 million Americans turn 50 each year and are likely to experience age-related physical changes that affect vision, cognition and mobility). The market also includes viewers without disabilities who support disability-themed content. The market is extremely profitable with a discretionary spending power over $225 billion, double that of teens and 17 times that of tweens (8-12), two demographics sought by advertisers. People with disabilities number 700 million worldwide.
The Advantage... Is our people. Our management team consists of experienced professionals from the entertainment, business and disability advocacy worlds, many of whom have disabilities themselves. Furthermore, we will be the employer of choice for people with disabilities. We know what it takes to survive and succeed in media, the disability market and in life. Our ability to partner with award-winning producers to provide high-quality, accessible programming that accurately addresses the concerns and reflects the disability experience creates added value for our advertisers and investors.
The Need... People with disabilities have a need to participate in the world economy, to contribute to the world culture via a media platform where they can define, express, and empower themselves. People with disabilities need vital news and entertainment tailored to their interests that also fully includes their family, friends, neighbors, and colleagues. In the current oversaturated media environment, businesses need a new way to reach a previously underutilized source of market share. This will in turn spur an increase in the disability-friendly features of many products and services: a win-win situation for society and enterprise.
The Opportunity... Today, a growing majority of people with disabilities (56%) perceive themselves as having a common identity. Marketers complain that consumers with disabilities are hard to target because there are no large-scale disability media outlets. Television viewers demand unique and innovative programming. American consumers favor companies they consider socially responsible and increasingly count those that hire workers with disabilities among that group. Our government, other nations and advocacy organizations across the world are eager to see the disability community move from an arena of charity to one of full economic participation. [with]tv is an opportunity for all of this and more leading to our success.