If the steady stream of soap operas and reality television shows are not your cup of tea, there is a brand new option for you: BCP (Bengaluru City Police) TV.
After cracking people up and earning ‘followers’ and ‘likes’ by the dozens with their witty social media posts, the Bengaluru City Police will soon launch a video channel, the first by any city police in the country.
The channel will be hosted on popular video platform YouTube and anchored on various BCP platforms online.
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What will the channel air? Apart from a series of crime prevention and awareness programmes, the channel will livestream all press conferences, parades and other functions. Several documentaries and short films that the city police produce as part of their outreach programme will also be aired.
“It’s not viable to buy ad spots on channels regularly to air public service videos on the prevalent modus operandi of various crimes. The video channel is a better alternative,” a senior official said.
Sources confirmed that a small studio is currently being put up at the city police headquarters from where the channel will be manned. A special team trained in making videos will be in place, sources said.
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City Police Commissioner Praveen Sood said the channel aims at leveraging the power of visual communication to reach out to the public.
“Recently, we did a Facebook live of the police parade and got tremendous response. Around 19,000 people watched it. Seeing is believing today,” he said, adding there were documentaries being made on the dog squad, parade horses and several other aspects of policing, which will be aired on the channel.
The channel is expected to begin in another two weeks, sources said.
First proposed in 2015, when M.N. Reddi was the Police Commissioner, the project was put on the back-burner.
A senior police official said that the video channel will help the police in multiple ways, especially when it comes to preventing a crime scene from being contaminated. “Camera persons from the electronic media often contaminate a crime scene. If we regularly put out visual feeds, we can regulate the media presence,” the official said.