26/10/2026

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What Child Is This

Johnny Mathis

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Accessibility

Last updated: 25th October 2026

This is the accessibility statement for Radio Christmas: our website at radiochristmas.co.uk, our apps (iPhone, iPad, Android, Apple TV, CarPlay and Android Auto) and our web player. We have tried to say plainly what works, what doesn’t yet, and what we are doing about it.

1. Our commitment

Radio Christmas is a Christmas radio station for everyone, and it raises money for Street Kids Direct. We want anyone to be able to listen, find out what’s on, give and get in touch, whether they use a screen reader, larger text, a keyboard, voice control, a switch, or none of those.

Radio Christmas is run by Radio Christmas CIC, a community interest company registered in England (company number 14769441), at 2 Centenary Way, Amersham, Buckinghamshire, HP6 6UL.

The station is audio first: you can enjoy it with your ears alone. The schedule, songs, news, weather and appeals are there to support the listening.

2. What this covers

  • The website: radiochristmas.co.uk, including the schedule, Last played, news, donate and contact pages.
  • The Radio Christmas app on iPhone and iPad, on Android, and on Apple TV.
  • The web player, which opens from “Listen live” on the website. It has the Live page only.
  • CarPlay and Android Auto, which show Radio Christmas on your car’s own screen (see section 4).

It does not cover other websites we link to, such as Street Kids Direct, Ofcom, or the pages of the services that take donations.

3. How accessible it is

We aim to meet the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2, level AA. We believe the website, apps and web player partially conform to WCAG 2.2 AA. That means most of it meets the standard, and some parts don’t yet. Section 5 lists those parts.

In short:

  • We went through everything in an accessibility audit in October 2026 (section 6), and most of what it found has been fixed. What’s left is in section 5.
  • On iPhone and iPad, the App Store lists these accessibility features for the app: Dark Interface, Differentiate Without Color Alone, Sufficient Contrast, Reduced Motion, VoiceOver and Voice Control. We have done a short VoiceOver and Voice Control check on an iPhone. A fuller check, with TalkBack on Android, on iPad and on Apple TV, is still to come before 1st December 2026 (section 6).
  • On Apple TV, the App Store lists Dark Interface, Sufficient Contrast and Reduced Motion. We don’t claim VoiceOver on Apple TV yet (section 5). Sufficient Contrast is claimed with a few small exceptions that we are fixing (section 5).
  • We don’t claim Larger Text yet, because some text doesn’t grow far enough (section 5). We don’t claim Captions or Audio Descriptions: Radio Christmas is audio, and there is no video you need to watch to follow it.
  • Everything described here is in version 3.0.0 of the app, on iPhone, iPad, Android and Apple TV. If you have an older test version, please update.

4. Features that help

On every device

  • Light and dark mode follow your device’s setting. There is nothing to change in the app.
  • Reduce Motion. If you have Reduce Motion (iPhone, iPad, Apple TV) or “Remove animations” (Android) switched on, the moving festive background is replaced by a still picture on iPhone, iPad, Android and Apple TV. The moving sound bars in the player and scrolling text stop as well, and Apple TV’s screen-saver style Ambient mode stays still. The live video previews on the Live page and Apple TV show a still picture too.
  • Colour is not the only cue. The selected day in the Schedule and Last played has a white ring as well as a red fill, and today is marked with a dot and read out as “Today”.
  • Clear text over pictures. Text over artwork has a dark layer behind it, and we darkened it further in the October 2026 audit. We also made the grey text in light mode and the news headline over photos darker.
  • Times in your own time zone. The Schedule can show UK times with yours in brackets, or just UK times, and you can pick another zone.
  • Announcements. The app tells a screen reader “Connecting”, “Playing”, “Stopped” and “Can’t connect, trying again” for the stream. It also announces reminders being set, a link being copied, the sleep timer, search results and new notices from us.

iPhone and iPad (VoiceOver, Voice Control, Switch Control)

  • Buttons, switches and tiles have names, and where they have visible words, the names match, so you can say “tap Play” with Voice Control.
  • Each Settings switch reads as one item: its label, “switch” and on or off, and you double-tap to change it.
  • The Play button on the Live page stays where it is while the station plays, so VoiceOver doesn’t lose its place, and it then reads “Stop”.
  • The forms (Message the studio and Volunteer) name each box, say which are required, and take you to the first mistake.
  • The Schedule’s “Listen live”, “Remind me” and “Listen again”, and a song’s preview, are also actions on each row (the VoiceOver actions rotor), so you needn’t swipe through buttons inside buttons.
  • Phone numbers and bank details are read digit by digit, not as one large number.
  • The weather by hour is one stop per hour, read as for example “9pm, light rain, 12 degrees, 30 per cent chance of rain”.
  • Links that leave the app say that they open in your browser.

Android (TalkBack)

  • The same names, roles, announcements and form help as on iPhone and iPad.
  • The search field on Last played has a clear button (“Clear search”) with a 44dp touch area. The home screen widget has a spoken description, and its Play button has a 48dp touch area. We’re still testing the widget with TalkBack.

Apple TV

  • It works with the Siri Remote, and the item you are on is clearly highlighted.
  • The focused Connect tiles and Go Live button turn bright white with dark text, and the smaller lines of text are 26pt.
  • QR codes are only on Apple TV. Those for web pages (donate, connect, More, Settings and the cards) have the web address printed under them, so you can type it instead of scanning, for example radiochristmas.co.uk/radio/shows. The exception is the small one in “Other ways to give” (section 5). The Text to give code shows the number to text instead.
  • VoiceOver (not yet tested on a real Apple TV): with it on, the appeal total, the on-air line, the track lists and the “Other ways to give” details, including bank details, can be read out.
  • Ambient mode doesn’t open while VoiceOver is on, and you can turn it off in Settings > Playback.
  • Bold Text, Increase Contrast and Reduce Transparency are followed in Settings and More.

The web player and website

  • You can use them with a keyboard, with a visible focus ring. The website’s forms name each field and say what went wrong, and were checked at 320 pixels wide. Its scrolling headlines can be paused, and the moving background stops if your device asks for reduced motion.
  • The web player reads out the station name. It also reports the Play and Stop button as busy while it connects, and reports the progress bar properly.

In the car

CarPlay and Android Auto show Radio Christmas using your car’s own system. We use the standard layouts, so your car’s own large buttons, voice control and other accessibility settings apply. We don’t add to them or change them.

5. What isn’t fully accessible yet

We would rather tell you than leave you to find out. We plan to fix these by 1st December 2026.

Text size (Larger Text)

  • Text that wraps onto more lines (show names and descriptions, song titles, news headlines) grows to 200% of your device’s text size, which is what WCAG asks for.
  • Fixed rows and buttons stop growing sooner so they don’t get cut off: the day strip, the Last played capsules, the weather columns, the notice bar and the widgets stop at 150%, buttons too, and the big page titles at 130%. This is why we don’t claim Larger Text on the App Store yet.
  • The full player on iPhone and iPad still uses a few fixed text sizes.

Apple TV and VoiceOver

  • Some Apple TV text, such as the appeal total, the on-air line, the bank details and the QR codes, couldn’t be reached by VoiceOver in earlier versions. Version 3.0.0 fixes this, but we haven’t yet tried it with VoiceOver on a real Apple TV, and the “now playing” strip on the lower half of the Live page still can’t be reached. Until we have tested it, we don’t claim VoiceOver on Apple TV.
  • On the Schedule’s time-zone line, the “Show times in” list opens at the top and not on your current choice, which can be a long way down. After you choose “UK times only”, focus jumps to the top of the page and not to the line.
  • The weather town field on Apple TV isn’t named for VoiceOver yet.

Pictures and colour

These are a few small, specific exceptions to the contrast we claim, and we are fixing each one. Everywhere else, text and buttons were measured and darkened where needed (section 6).

  • The date line on a news card can be hard to read over a very white photo. The headline is easier to read in 3.0.0, but the date line isn’t fixed yet.
  • On Apple TV, the small QR code in “Other ways to give” has no address printed under it (the other QR codes for web pages do). VoiceOver reads its address, but if you can’t scan it, ask us for the web address.
  • White text on the top of the festive band may still be under the 3:1 contrast on the very brightest parts (the snowflake and the star). We darkened it in 3.0.0 but haven’t measured it again.
  • Some images, including one on the iPhone widget, may still be missing a description.

Web player

  • The moving background video has no pause button. The only way to stop it is the device’s Reduce Motion setting.
  • The title and artist over the artwork can be hard to read on some covers.
  • A new song isn’t read out by a screen reader, and the page has no headings or landmarks to jump between.
  • The logo, artwork and background pictures have no text descriptions.
  • The Play control isn’t yet reported as a button, and can lose focus when pressed.

Website

The website was rebuilt this year and checked separately. The forms, the home page, the donate page and Last played are done. Still to do:

  • The red appeal band at the foot of the page, where white text doesn’t reach 4.5:1 on the approved gradient. It needs a design decision.
  • Some small buttons and links are under 44 by 44 pixels (header, footer, share buttons, schedule and carousel dots).
  • Some details for screen readers: the live “On air” band, the “Now playing” widget and the donation total don’t announce changes, the search button doesn’t say whether it is open, the Schedule’s tabs don’t all name what they show, and some headings are at the wrong level.
  • Some page content: a few links have no name or are shown by colour alone, and one embedded frame has no title. We’re fixing these on the live site.

Other

  • Bold Text, Increase Contrast and Reduce Transparency aren’t followed on Android or on Apple TV’s Donate, Connect and Live screens.
  • Pages we show from other organisations, such as donation forms, are built by them and may not meet the same standard.

6. How we test

  • The October 2026 audit. In October 2026 we checked the whole app and the web player against WCAG 2.2 AA, the screen-reader guidance for iOS, Android and tvOS, and Apple’s list of common tasks (such as Settings, Play and Donate). Around fifty things were found, and each is tracked as its own piece of work. The website was audited the same week, with an automated scan, a keyboard-only pass, and checks at 320 and 1280 pixels with reduced motion on.
  • Screen readers and devices. We have run screens on the iPhone and tvOS simulators and on an Android emulator. On 25th October 2026 we did a short VoiceOver and Voice Control check on an iPhone. We haven’t yet done a fuller pass with TalkBack on an Android phone, VoiceOver on an iPad, or VoiceOver on a real Apple TV. We’re doing that before 1st December 2026.
  • Contrast. We measured our text and button colours on our backgrounds in both light and dark mode, and darkened the ones that were too faint.
  • Listeners. We haven’t yet had disabled listeners test the app with us. If you’d like to help, please write to us (section 7). If you use a screen reader or other assistive technology and would like to help us test, email [email protected].

7. Feedback and contact

If something on Radio Christmas doesn’t work for you, or you’d like information in another way (for example, the schedule as a plain list, or read out), tell us:

  • Email: [email protected]
  • Phone: +44 (0) 1494 853797
  • Post: Radio Christmas CIC, 2 Centenary Way, Amersham, Buckinghamshire, HP6 6UL

Please say which page or screen it was, which device you use (for example, iPhone with VoiceOver), and what happened. We’ll reply within 5 working days, and tell you what we can do.

8. Complaints

If you aren’t happy with our reply, you can use the complaints form on our Contact page: https://radiochristmas.co.uk/about/contact/#skdr-contact-complain

If you want to complain about what we broadcast, rather than about accessibility, the regulator is Ofcom: https://www.ofcom.org.uk/complaints

If you’re not happy with how we respond to a complaint about accessibility, you can contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS), which covers England, Scotland and Wales.

This statement was prepared on 25th October 2026. We’ll update it as we fix things or find new ones, and at least once a year.