Broadcasting in the digital age needs to be more personal and interactive, Shashi Vempati, CEO of India’s public broadcaster Prasar Bharati, has said.

Mr Vempati was giving the opening address at the four-day ABU Digital Broadcasting Symposium, DBS 2022, which got under way on 21 March.

“The audience want to be part of the story,” he said. Broadcasters now had a whole new set of digital tools and technologies to help them meet this need.

Mr Vempati, who is also ABU Vice-President, urged ABU members to be at the forefront of implementing new technologies and setting standards.

He noted that it was public broadcasters who had worked around the clock to provide crucial information and keep people informed during the pandemic.

“The importance of broadcasting took centre in stage in all of our lives,” he said.

Mohamad Helmi Harith, Group CEO of Altel Holdings, gave the industry keynote. Altel Holdings is the parent company of MYTV Broadcasting, the Principal Sponsor of DBS 2020.

He addressed the future of digital TV broadcasting, describing how new technologies enabled broadcasters to make more revenue-generating content. Broadcasters needed to shift from serving a TV audience to serving audiences wherever they were, he said.