Now tune in to All India Radio services on Alexa

The All India Radio (AIR) listeners can tune in to Vividh Bharati and 14 other regional language streaming services of the public broadcaster at Amazon Alexa, a voice-controlled smart speaker.

Information and Broadcasting Minister Rajyavardhan Rathore on Friday launched AIR's streaming services on Amazon’s Alexa.

With this the AIR hopes to increase its global footprint.

“Launching of AIR's streaming services on Amazon’s Alexa platform would be a synergy of old and modern forms of communication,' Rathore said.

This initiative will benefit Indian diaspora around the world, he hoped.

“Now, anyone from any part of the world can listen to the AIR programmes,” he added.

Speaking on the occasion, Prasar Bharati chairman A Surya Prakash said playlist of the AIR's archival assets will also be made available in the Alexa platform “in the future.”

“Already, 390 million people around the world are using voice-based communication and this would almost triple to 1.83 billion people in the next three years,” Rajiv Sawhney, principal tech business development, Amazon Alexa (Asia), said.

A Prasar Bharati official said the Amazon Alexa would supplement the AIR's website and mobile app.

“AIR will get an additional platform for global and domestic audiences and will cover all the shadow areas of the terrestrial broadcasting in the regional, headquarters and metro cities in particular,” he added.