Mumbai: BBC News Marathi is launching the BBC’s first ever news bulletin for a mobile audience in India as part of a 24/7 video stream on the Reliance JIO TV app. Titled BBC Vishwa, the bulletin will broadcast live at 1900-1920 IST. The partnership with Jio enables BBC News Marathi to engage with the largest 4G network in India.
The BBC is the only international broadcaster on the Jio TV app offering a 24/7 mobile video stream in a regional Indian language. This ground breaking product will be a first for BBC World Service and will feature a rich mix of trending topics, politics, youth, sport, entertainment, business, health and education updated on a regular basis.
BBC Vishwa is an innovative, fast paced digital bulletin with specially created content that will include enriching analysis. It will draw on the full reach of BBC News reporters in India and around the world to deliver engaging stories and features to Marathi speakers.
Ashish Dikshit, head of BBC News Marathi says, “Young people in Maharashtra prefer to watch the news on digital mobile platforms and we are excited to offer the first digital bulletin in Marathi. The globalised youth will now get to watch top stories across the world and the best features produced by the BBC.”
Jyotindra Thacker, Reliance Industries Limited says,“We have always believed in disrupting the way content is consumed in today’s world. The next big growth in digital content consumption will be driven by giving access to the vernacular content to the masses. BBC Vishwa on JioTV, is our yet another digital endeavour aimed at empowering India’s youth with high quality digital news on their fingertips. There is nothing better than serving millions of Marathi speaking Jio users with news in a language they associate the most.”
The launch is part of the BBC World Service expansion, which has seen 12 new language services launched around the world over the last 12 months. New language services have been launched with websites and TV programmes in India for Gujarati, Marathi, Punjabi and Telegu in addition to Hindi and Tamil.
This forms part of a significant BBC investment in India, including an expanded news bureau in Delhi with two new TV studios. The Delhi bureau is the BBC’s second largest outside the UK and is the TV & digital content production hub for the whole of South Asia.
BBC Vishwa will focus on more original journalism which impacts human lives through its network of reporters across India to report on variety of stories and issues.
