Network18 strengthens elections coverage with data analytics, AR and VR

Network18, that houses channels like CNN-News18, News18 India, CNBC-TV18 and a network of regional channels under News18 brand, and hosts news platforms like moneycontrol, News18.com and Firstpost, announced that it will be heavily relying on technology to boost election coverage across its network.  

Basant Dhawan

Basant Dhawan, CEO – English and Business News Cluster, Network18, said, “General election requires great preparedness not just from the content point of view, but also from what goes on behind the screens. Technology and innovations have been the backbone of impactful news viewing experience and we at Network18 are committed to delivering the same. We have a very engaging line-up of shows and reporting from every corner of the nation and the technology edge to make the news reach our viewers in the fastest and most accurate manner. Together, News18 brand offers a compelling proposition for viewers to experience a superior election coverage on our network.”

Rajat Nigam

Rajat Nigam, Group Chief Technology Officer, Network18, said, “Our technology platform has coherent back-end catering to the entire content value chain from information collection to processing and presentation and further to distribution to all our news channels, websites and Mobile Applications. Integrated Broadcast and Digital newsroom operations generate a high level of synergy underneath, driving high energy output for our shows.”

News18 Network that reaches out to 26 states of the country in 15 languages has over 1200 reporters on-ground who bring hyper-local news to the fore.

Against the backdrop of the size of the network, Nigam added, “The primary uniqueness of our offering is with respect to the election results as we are deploying systems for end-to-end data collection, processing and dissemination that no other TV channel or media house does. We have our own people at each of the counting centres across the country because of which authenticity of the results carried by us is beyond doubt. Efficient coding to process the data that translates the input information directly on all 21 of our News18 channels and multilingual news portals without any manual intervention is something that we feel proud of.”

Media industry across the world is excited to witness and to be an integral part of the biggest democratic process in the coming weeks. Elections are the opportunity for various media houses to showcase their technological edge over the competition.

Talking about the presentation, Nigam said, “We plan to make extensive use of Augmented and Virtual reality technology on our channels to enhance the on-screen presentation values with the intent to provide our viewers the results and analysis in a most appealing and acceptable format. Viewers will witness the innovative blend of creativity and technology of our teams during elections much different than ever done before in India. To provide interactivity to our viewers, we have designed and developed a Magic Wall that would be used for in-depth analysis rendering significance to data with simplicity. The application running on the interactive video screens allows for drilling down the data from now to past elections, pertaining to each constituency going to polls, signifying the patterns, practices and policies driving the electoral mandate.” 

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