News Broadcasting
CNN launches digital venture ‘Anthony Bourdain Parts Unknown’
MUMBAI: Explore Parts Unknown is a mobile-first immersive guide featuring original stories and video, premium photography, and engaging interactives inspired by the Emmy-winning CNN Original Series Anthony Bourdain. The experience will allow users to recreate Bourdain’s journeys and dive deeper into the people, places, and stories he’s encountered.
Explore Parts Unknown is an editorial partnership between CNN and Roads & Kingdoms – an independent journal of food, politics, travel and culture based in New York and Barcelona. Together, we have built a digital universe for the Bourdain super-fan, enabling you to learn what Tony knows, go where he went, eat what he ate, and drink what he drank. Born from Bourdain’s contagious passion for culture, food, travel and adventure, Explore Parts Unknown highlights our shared obsessions: authentic food, culture, people, travel; continuing the conversations Tony starts beyond the TV screen.
Bourdain said, “Explore Parts Unknown is the next step, a logical step, and a deeply enjoyable one for me in collaboration with CNN and Roads & Kingdoms. I’m not a journalist, and never claimed to be one. I’m an essayist and storyteller. But the people at Roads & Kingdoms ARE journalists–and very good ones. This venture serves my insatiable curiosity and gives us the opportunity to go further off the beaten path, tell more stories, enrich and elaborate on existing ones, and go deeper into the locations that I travel to for the TV series.”
The site will launch with destinations like Hanoi, Las Vegas, Koreatown (LA), Manila, Buenos Aires, London, Punjab, Montana, The Greek Islands, Senegal, Madagascar, Istanbul, New Jersey, Colombia and South Korea. New destinations will roll out weekly with original content.
The site will include digital features like:
• Exclusive Videos: The site will launch with a 7-episode digital series called Catalunya: The Return featuring Bourdain’s road trip across Spain.
• Bourdain’s Field Notes: First person notes from Bourdain’s travels.
• The Perfect Day: Time stamped blueprints for a perfect 12 hours in a given destination, including notes on restaurants, bars and random detours.
• Hotel Bar Diaries: Short personal, voice-heavy dispatches from hotel bars around the world.
• Recipes: Recipes of dishes from episodes from Anthony Bourdain Parts Unknown with accompanying articles that gives context to the dish, its origins and importance.
• Destination Fact Sheets: Fact sheets that allow you to “Travel like Bourdain” with local lingo, travel tips, and restaurant recommendations.
News Broadcasting
CNN-News18 to host Kolkata Town Hall on Hooghly River
‘Bhalobasa Bengal Inspiring Bharat’ event on April 20 brings cultural icons, trailblazing women and leaders aboard a cruise to celebrate Bengal’s enduring influence.
MUMBAI: Bengal is about to make fresh waves on the Hooghly and this time the current is pure conversation. CNN-News18 is taking its iconic Town Hall format to the waters of the iconic Hooghly River on 20 April 2026 with a special edition titled ‘Bhalobasa Bengal – Inspiring Bharat’. The floating event will celebrate the state’s rich cultural legacy and how its ideas, creativity and spirit continue to shape the rest of the country.
The unique riverside setting draws on Bengal’s history as a cradle of reform, art and intellectual thought. The speaker line-up mirrors that diversity: cultural heavyweights Mithun Chakraborty and Sreenanda Shankar will share the stage with trailblazing “Devis” such as Tanya Sanyal (India’s first woman firefighter in aviation), Ipsita Chakraborty (Kolkata’s first woman bartender) and Reshma Nilofer Visalakshi (Nari Shakti awardee and marine pilot). Music will flow through the celebrated pianist-vocalist duo Sourendro and Soumyojit, while public life and governance will be represented by Smriti Irani, Leander Paes, Saira Shah Halim, Keya Ghosh, Rekha Patra, Roopa Ganguly and Babul Supriyo.
CNN-News18, editorial affairs director, Rahul Shivshankar, said the event honours voices that carry Bengal’s legacy forward. Smriti Mehra, CEO – English & Business News, Network18, added that Bengal’s stories resonate far beyond its borders, especially as the state heads into polls.
From the first woman to battle flames in the skies to legendary actors who shaped Indian cinema, the gathering promises a rich mix of inspiration, courage and candid dialogue. In a city where culture has always flowed as freely as the river itself, CNN-News18 is turning the Hooghly into a floating forum for ideas that matter.
Tune in on 20 April on CNN-News18, CTV and YouTube to catch Bengal’s heartbeat in full flow.
