Google partners with Prasar Bharti for live coverage of nationally important days

Earlier on Tuesday, 13 August, Google announced that it is planning a continuous long – term collaboration with Prasar Bharti. This collaboration will ensure live coverage on YouTube and Google Search for events that are important on a national scale like telecast of National Independence Day and Republic Day.

A recently released statement announced that the content from over two decades will be digitized by Google. The digitization will be from All India Radio and Doordarshan on Google Arts and Culture and host digital archives of Prasar Bharti in more than 12 Indian languages on YouTube.

The statement adds that as part of the collaboration, people from all over the world will be able to watch full parade and Prime Minister’s speech live on Doordarshan’s YouTube channel. This is another threshold that India has achieved as it celebrates its 73^rd Independence Day on 15 August, 2019.

The Director, Public Policy at Google India and South Asia, Chetan Krishnaswamy said that they are delighted to collaborate with Prasar Bharati for promoting their library of rich content. With this collaboration, Google is hoping to bring the best of Prasar Bharti’s broadcast programming to digital users across age-groups, in multiple languages, and topics that are integral to the rich history and culture of India.

Both mobile and desktop users will be able to access the footage via a link to the YouTube live feed that will be made available on Google Search when users search for India Independence Day.

With regard to this news, Prasar Bharti’s CEO Shashi Shekhar said, “The partnership between Prasar Bharti and Google has been instrumental in bringing content of national interest on digital platform to a range of audiences globally. The partnership has also played a key role in creating a mindshare for the public broadcaster among the young audiences who are digitally savvy and are increasingly consuming media through smart phones and other mobile handsets.”