TANZANIA: 52 Million US Residents On Three-hour NgorongoroTour On TV

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.