MUMBAI: In a recent brainstorming session, India’s largest public broadcasting agency Prasar Bharti CEO Shashi Shekhar Vempati spoke on format changes of All India Radio (AIR) and Doordarshan (DD).

In a conference held, Vempati spoke openly on what initiatives PB needs to inculcate and ideate. The official handle of Prasar Bharati shared video of the same.

“One of the key themes I would like to highlight is our ‘technology planning’ where we are still playing a ‘catch up’. We should think about where our technology will be in five years from now on. 'Forward-thinking’ rather than ‘catching up’ will help us for our future, " explained Vempati.

He enunciated on how a traditional style in which PB operates is becoming less relevant.

 “I saw a style in our organization wherein we were structured in terms of engineering vertical, news and those historically had a reason but going forward it wouldn’t make sense. We have to create an organization where people have to be multi-skilled and multi-talented.”

Vempati gives an example of the recently held World Cup commentary that was available on digital radio-based DRM technologies, “We took active interests in sports, you can see the synergy of content is so high between radio and television and considering our ‘YouTube sports channel’ there is a lot of radio content that is being visualized and that is actually getting traction. We got digital traction and revenue and did something innovative by merging television and radio.”

He explained about another convergence, “Mann Ki Baat is a great example of a good convergence between TV and radio as we had visually enriched it and taken it across in multiple languages in multiple formats. Large volumes of content get generated from those monologues.”

Also Read: Prasar Bharati's innovative combination of radio commentary and sign language made World Cup 2019 a unique experience for the hearing and visually impaired

“Peoples consumption of media is getting extremely personally targeted and much focused,” he added.

Lastly, on what the agency really needs to focus on, Shashi Vempati concluded, “Between 'news and live' is where our USP lies and where we need to invest in our technology planning. 'Live news’ is a competency that we can build on and institutionalize.”