BNT launches online playlists for listening to news

In the new feature "Listen to the news today" on the site bntnews.bg, all news are automatically loaded into a playlist. You can listen while browsing the networks or writing an email on your phone.

Since the beginning of February, BNT has launched a completely new and innovative functionality on its news site. "Listen to the news today" is a unique technology for the Bulgarian online space, developed on the basis of artificial intelligence, with which the users of the public service broadcaster’s website - bntnews.bg and the news application BNT NEWS, have the opportunity to listen to the latest news of the day.

Robot reads audio news on the Bulgarian National Television

"It is no longer enough to play the main news cast to find out what has happened in the world and in the country. The news is available at any time and part of our mission as a public service broadcaster is to create opportunities for the content to reach as many people as possible from different age and social groups," BNT Director General, Emil Koshlukov, has said.

"With the new feature, anyone who wants to listen to the most important news from the BNT newsroom, can do so while driving, travelling on the underground, walking the dog or reviewing their tasks for the day. I am glad that the public service broadcaster is the first to make this possible. We help not only blind people to "see" the news through their devices. Through the playlists of "Listen to the news today", young and active viewers will have access to BNT on their tablet or phone from anywhere," the DG added

BNT has a clear development strategy and digitalization is one of the main priorities in the work of the teams. Over the past year, the media updated its websites, launched a free-of-charge mobile application, which in a short period of time ranked in the top 3 of the most frequented and downloaded news applications. BNT became the first to have podcast channels on all major platforms and create its own content on various topics.

"After we launched a robot in December that reads the news instead of the user, many people wrote to us and congratulated us on this new feature on the site and in our application. So we decided to continue development and create playlists where you can listen to the news. Users most appreciate that they are able to listen to the news while using the phones for other purposes. We continue to improve the capabilities and add functionality", says Borislav Choranov, Director of Multimedia at BNT.

"Listen to the news today" contains all the important topics of the day in one playlist. So people can quickly and easily choose what they want to listen to, adjust the speed and volume and listen to the news from any point and device. In the coming weeks, an option to customize the audio playlists and an option to select the news by categories and headings and according to personal preferences and interests will be added.

"Listen to the news today" is available on bntnews.bg for Android and iOS users, as well as through the desktop versions of all devices.