AIR & Amazon Join Hands for Amazon Echo

Public service broadcaster All India Radio (AIR) and e-Commerce major Amazon have inked an agreement to fan out local and global services of AIR through a voice command on Amazon Echo.

Echo devices, powered by the artificial intelligent (AI) virtual assistant Alexa, will start streaming All India Radio (AIR) services in the next 10 days, enabling listeners from any part of the world to tune in their choice programmes on 17 local services, including FM Gold, FM Rainbow and Vividh Bharati, a top Prasar Bharti official said.

Amazon Echo is a hands-free speaker one can control with his or her voice. Echo connects to the Alexa Voice Service to play music, ask questions, make calls, send and receive messages, provide information, news, sports scores, weather, and more-instantly.

In order to avail the 'voice on demand' service, the listeners need to buy 'Echo' device from the e-commerce platform of Amazon. Besides offering 17 local services, including FM Gold, FM Rainbow, Vividh Bharati, the All India Radio runs 14 regional language services through its digital applications and online platform. The national broadcaster also offers 27 global services.