MORE than 52 million residents in the United States were on Tuesday night taken through a three-hour tour of Tanzania’s most popular tourist hotspot, the Ngorongoro Crater, straight from Arusha to America through ABC television via the world’s first ever live broadcast from the African wilderness.
The feat was made possible through five
Tanzanian Goodwill Ambassadors based in Texas, New York, Chicago and Los
Angeles, the United States and the Tanzanian Embassy in the United
States in Washington DC.
Tanzania’s Permanent Representative to
the United Nations, Mr Tuvako Manongi, also played an important role in
making the live broadcast from Ngorongoro to the US possible.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, East
Africa, Regional and International Cooperation Spokesperson Mindi Kasiga
said such live coverage to promote the country’s tourism destinations
was costly, but thanks to ABC, it footed the bill.
“This means Tanzania has saved over 250
million US dollars, which is the cost for the three-hour live
broadcasting. The figure translates into nearly 600bn/-,” she pointed
out.
ABC Television, through its popular
“Good Morning America” (GMA), took an audience of more than 50 million
viewers onto a live immersive 360-degree virtual reality tour of one of
the most breathtaking natural wonders in Africa, the wildlife filled
Caldera of Ngorongoro, in Arusha Region.
The television’s anchor, Ms Amy Robach,
brought what was described as the “technology of tomorrow’’ to the
Ngorongoro Crater, which some call Tanzania’s ‘Garden of Eden,’ a
caldera in which there is the world’s greatest concentration of large
mammals, “including over 30,000 ungulates and carnivores’’.
GMA broadcast exotic animals live in
their natural habitat in a way never seen before, using drone-mounted
cameras and IM360’s 360-degree virtual reality camera.
Through portable gear and bush pitched
studio, the world managed to experience some of nature’s wildest, most
dangerous predators up close -- from elephants to hippos, lions to
wildebeests and ostriches to gazelles.
For three hours from 3pm local time, the
coverage was on air and being watched by six million residents of New
York City where ABC broadcasts from as well as other 50 million viewers
across the United States.
For the first time on network
television, the 360-degree virtual reality camera allowed people across
the ocean to explore the landscapes, in reality.
In the US, the ABC’s IM360 camera was
live from 7 to 9 a.m. ET. The Conservator at Ngorongoro Conservation
Area Authority (NCAA), Dr Freddy Manongi, said taking virtual tour of
the crater to over 50 million Americans at a go had elevated further the
status of the already popular destination, which attracts over 600,000
visitors every year
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