Astro sets Guinness World Record for non-stop live streaming

GUINNESS World Records awarded media company Astro the record for the Longest Live Streamed Festival with 55 hours of non-stop live streaming of the Thaipusam festival from Jan 22 to Jan 25.
This live streaming enabled a global audience to follow Thaipusam's rich and colourful celebrations in Malaysia, Sri Lanka and India on Astro Ulagam's website and Facebook page.
As a result, Astro Ulagam saw 119 million reach on its Facebook and the campaign's hashtag #Vetrivel2016 trended during the period.
Interestingly 35% of the global audience who followed the live streaming of the Thaipusam proceedings were from US, 28% from India, 16% from Malaysia, 5% from the UK, 4% from Canada and the rest was made up from an audience from other countries.
Swapnil Dangarikar, official adjudicator with Guinness World Records presented the Guinness World Records certificate to Henry Tan, the COO of Astro and Dr Rajamani Chellamuthu, senior vice president of Indian customer business on March 23 at a ceremony held at Astro's Studio One in Bukit Jalil.
Swapnil congratulated Astro for providing the platform for global audiences to witness one of Malaysia's most colourful festivals and as such playing a key role as the country's tourism ambassador.
Rajamani, in his speech said, "At Astro, we aspire to offer our viewers content choices, and the live streaming of the Thaipusam procession created much interest globally and even transcended geographical boundaries via our digital platform."
He said to achieve this feat, Astro's crew was deployed across three countries – Sri Lanka, India and Malaysia and drone cameras were also used to to provide panoramic and full spectrum viewing experience.
Rajamani also added, "We would like to take this opportunity to thank all our fans for their tremendous support which motivates us to push beyond our limits. Setting this Guinness World Records title takes festive celebration with Astro to a whole new level and further distinguishes Astro Ulagam as the leading destination for entertainment and live events."
Following the success of this year's live streaming, Astro Ulagam has plans to do it again next year with Singapore, Mauritius and USA Thaipusam festivities being featured as well. They also plan to increase their reach to 150 to 200 million people.
Astro Ulagam is Malaysia's Indian Entertainment News & Events hub highlighting Indian channels & top shows on Astro, latest entertainment news, videos and more.
Currently Astro Ulagam Facebook page have 1.7 Million likes, average weekly reach of 15 Million and 2.2 Million average video views weekly. For more updates, please visit the official website, http://www.astroulagam.com.my/
This is the second time that Guinness World Records has bestowed an award to Astro.
The first was in 2013 for the Longest Underwater Cleanup, an effort under Astro Kasih, a volunteer initiative undertaken by Astro employees for the betterment and advancement of the community that we live in.