PBSHABD: Prasar Bharati Free News Feed Serves 3,600 Outlets

PBSHABD is the free news feed service of Prasar Bharati, India's public service broadcaster. The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting launched it in New Delhi on 13 March 2024, and a backgrounder issued on 24 September 2026 sets out how far the platform has travelled since. The name expands to Prasar Bharati - Shared Audio-Visuals for Broadcast and Dissemination, and it plays on the Hindi word for the spoken or written word.

From an internal wire to an open platform

What is now an open platform began as the Prasar Bharati News Service, a wire meant only for the broadcaster's own desks, whose copy fed bulletins on Akashvani and Doordarshan. The 2024 launch threw it open to outside newsrooms. Prasar Bharati itself is an autonomous body set up by an Act of Parliament: the law was passed in 1990 and the corporation came into existence on 23 November 1997, working through its two constituents, Akashvani and Doordarshan.

What a registered user gets

• Content in five formats: text, video, audio, photographs and infographics.
• News in 15 Indian languages and under nearly 50 news categories.
• No subscription fee. Free access was first extended to March 2026 and has since been extended up to March 2027.
• No Prasar Bharati logo and no credit line, so a district newspaper may carry a national story under its own masthead.

Newspapers and journals register with a valid RNI certificate, television and radio stations with uplink and downlink certificates, and digital publishers on submitting a copy of their PAN. In two years the user base has grown to 3,600 media organisations.

The network behind the feed

More than 1,500 reporters, correspondents and stringers feed the platform, and 60 dedicated desks work round the clock on what they send. Akashvani News runs 46 regional news units and a headquarters, putting out 607 bulletins a day in 92 languages and dialects, while Doordarshan News runs 31 regional news units and a headquarters with more than 145 bulletins. Every story is timestamped, datelined and captioned, and the service guards against fake or manipulated material. A PBSHABD 2.0, with new product lines, is planned.