India’s NDTV Teams Up with Astucemedia for Powerful Election Coverage

DELHI, INDIA
17/05/2009

New Delhi : NDTV knows all about world-class news and programming.  As India’s largest provider of news and entertainment programming, the network played a key role in covering India’s recent national election.  To ensure seamless coverage on the air and on the web, NDTV executives turned to Astucemedia of Montreal, who helped create and integrate the network’s graphics with real-time election data.

“The graphics were best in class,” said Smeeta Chakrabarti, Head of Operations, NDTV Group.  “The developers and designers from Astucemedia worked closely with the graphics team at NDTV and were instrumental in creating some of the best graphics that went on air across all the news channels.”

NDTV provided comprehensive election coverage on all three of the network’s channels:  flagship channel NDTV 24x7, which broadcasts top-rated news in English; NDTV Profit, India’s leading 24-hour business news channel; and NDTV India, considered among the country's most credible Hindi news channels.  The network reaches over 40 million Indian households daily, and is also broadcast on satellite throughout the world.

“It was an honor to play such a key role for India’s biggest provider of news and information during this very important election,” said Alexandre Leclerc, CEO of Astucemedia.  “And it’s a real pleasure to work with a team as creative and dedicated as the pros at NDTV.  We continue to work closely with their staff to provide ongoing training and support.”

Astucemedia’s complete project management services for NDTV spanned from project conception to completion.  Working closely with the NDTV team, Astucemedia’s designers helped develop the core creative concept for the election graphics, as well as create specific assets for the overall package.

Perhaps most important, the team’s developers programmed sophisticated but user-friendly touch screen graphics.  The system was fully optimized to allow NDTV news producers and presenters to instantly retrieve the latest election data in a visually compelling way.

“The systems, particularly the touch screen graphics, were vital in putting together error-free delivery,” said Chakrabarti.  “This resulted in greater synchronization of the fast-changing numbers in the editorial content – all of which helped us deliver on our election theme ‘NDTV – The Place for Elections.’”

Astucemedia also trained the NDTV production staff on their new VizRt system, ensuring they were able to take full advantage of the system’s impressive potential.  The company continues to offer NDTV personnel full support and training.