  Broadcasting and streaming services still suffer from various levels of
accessibility barriers for a significant portion of the population, limiting
the access to information and culture, and in the most severe cases limiting
the empowerment of people. This paper provides a brief overview of some of the
most common accessibility barriers encountered. It then gives a short
introduction to object-based audio (OBA) production and transport, focusing on
the aspects relevant for lowering accessibility barriers. MPEG-H Audio is used
as a concrete example of an OBA system already deployed. Two example cases
(dialog enhancement and audio description) are used to demonstrate in detail
the simplicity of producing MPEG-H Audio content providing improved
accessibility. Several other possibilities are outlined briefly. We show that
using OBA for broadcasting and streaming content allows offering several
accessibility features in a flexible manner, requiring only small changes to
the existing production workflow, assuming the receiver supports the
functionality.
