Prasar Bharati going global

Hyderabad: Prasar Bharati, statutory autonomous body and India’s largest public broadcasting agency, will have a strong global voice soon, according to a top official. It is in the process of floating a public broadcasting platform for global audience.

Prasar Bharati CEO Shashi Shekhar was in the city to take part in the Global Entrepreneurship Summit (GES-2017). Shekhar sees growing importance for India to have a strong global voice on the lines of BBC and Al Jazeera.

“We have begun works on setting up a global broadcasting platform. We’re doing it on a top priority. We hope to bring in many changes in the next four years. And, these measures will help deal with many pending legacy issues,” he said.

Our country’s population is 1.2billion and this huge country needs to have a global platform in the media as well, he said, while adding that “very soon you’ll see the results.”

Prasar Bharati runs the two public broadcasters, All India Radio (AIR) and Doordarshan, under the Prasar Bharati Act. “With digital media revolutionising the information exchange across the borders, it’s extremely important for India to have its own public broadcasting platform on a global scale. With many of the audiences worldwide going digital, you will probably see that happen first on the digital front and then, we will take it across,” Shekhar said.

Shekhar, however, sees an urgent need of transforming the organisation into a global public platform considering the ever-changing requirements of audiences of the 21st century. Considering this, he said, Prasar Bharati is focusing on modern technology applications to make the global broadcasting more effective.