RadioandMusic
| 08 Dec 2024
Prasar Bharati's innovative combination of radio commentary and sign language made World Cup 2019 a unique experience for the hearing and visually impaired

MUMBAI: ICC World Cup 2019 might have ended, but left back some memories and innovations, especially in the world of radio and digital.

We all know that national broadcaster Prasar Bharati and Doordarshan were on the forefront when it came to bringing live updates of every match. Radio commentary made its digital debut through Prasar Bharati’s YouTube channel. Three streams were made available on YouTube score, visuals of commentators and sign language.

Speaking about the same, Prasar Bharati CEO Shashi Shekhar Vempati said, “We did some new things this year. For the first time, world cup commentary was also available on digital radio based on DRM technologies. It was also made available to the satellite radio through DTH (free dish), while online streaming was on YouTube, which had a phenomenal response.”

He further shared, “So, apart from these three modes, we had our camera in the commentary studio owing to which, you could also see the commentators on YouTube, thus giving a live studio based unique experience. Lastly, we had radio commentary along with sign language interpretation of the match. This was streamed on DD Sports 2.0 and was made available for the hearing and visually impaired.”

The sign language and radio commentary combo was a unique innovation introduced by All India Radio and Prasar Bharati and was available to all private cables and DTH platforms. The second of theirs dual stream, DD Sports 1.0 telecasted live match.