BBC Tamil inks deal with The Hindu-Tamil

The two media conglomerates have reached a content syndication deal.

BBC World Service has recently inked a deal with The Hindu Group for its Tamil-language content where the text content from the BBC Tamil website, www.bbctamil.com, will directly available to users of the web version of The Hindu-Tamil.

A syndication agreement between BBC World Service and The Hindu has been reached where up to ten stories from the international index of bbctamil.com are now featured on a BBC-branded section on the World page of tamil.thehindu.com.

The international publisher claims that the traffic to its bbctamil.com grew by around 80 per cent year-on-year, compared to October last year and over 70 per cent of these users are in India.

Thirumalai Manivannan, editor, BBC Tamil, says, "This collaboration is an excellent development for our global audiences, especially those in Tamil Nadu. We hope that the strength of the BBC's international news coverage will bring extra benefits to the Tamil users of The Hindu website."

Indu Shekhar Sinha, head, business development, BBC World Service, Asia Pacific, says, "India is one of the fastest growing internet markets in the world and the expansion of the Tamil-language digital media market is part of this. We are confident that the collaboration with The Hindu-Tamil will further enhance BBC Tamil's reputation and audience."

Asokan K, editor, The Hindu Tamil, says, "The Hindu-Tamil's website tamil.thehindu.com caters to the Tamil-speaking diaspora around the globe. This collaboration with BBC Tamil will add more flavour to our audience that demands quality news."

The website bbctamil.com offers a range of content-sharing functions and has a mobile version.

BBC Tamil also offers 30-minute daily shortwave radio broadcasts to India and Sri Lanka. BBC Tamil also broadcasts a five-minute global update on Shakthi FM in Sri Lanka on weekdays.

During 2014, BBC Worldwide introduced Urdu radio on mobile platform and strengthened its production team. It made its flagship radio programme, Sairbeen, available as a free app via the audio-sharing channel, AudioBoo.

BBC Tamil is part of BBC World Service which is an international multimedia broadcaster which delivers a wide range of language and regional services on radio, TV, online and via wireless handheld devices. It uses multiple platforms to reach its weekly audience of over 191 million globally, including shortwave, AM, FM, digital satellite and cable channels.

Its news sites include audio and video content and offer opportunities to join the global debate. BBC World Service offers its multilingual radio content to partner FM stations around the world and has numerous partnerships supplying content to news websites, mobile phones and other wireless handheld devices as well as TV channels.