Doordarshan plans major revamp

ThereDoordarshan has major plans for internal restructuring. In the last two years, Doordarshan has launched 18 channels. Although all of them are not doing equally well, several initiatives are being launched which are expected to show results soon.

Recently, Doordarshan has received feasibility reports on studios relating to various personnel and finance related functions of Prasar Bharati from several institutes like IIM Ahmedabad, Tata Consultancy Services, Administrative Staff College, Hyderabad among others.

Ratings of DD Metro and DD News are improving day by day and the public broadcaster’s revenue is expected to touch the figure of Rs. 700 crore this year. The man behind all these activities in Prasar Bharati is its CEO, Rajiv Ratan Shah.

As soon as you enter the newly renovated chamber of R.R. Shah, he shows you recently acquired SPLITTER (a wide screen) which enables him to watch as many as 16 DD channels simultaneously.
Screen spoke to him regarding some important issues:
You have been criticised for losing money in acquiring the telecast rights of Sydney Olympics. Comment.

DD bashing is the easiest thing for anybody to do. It is really difficult for us to be accountable for each and every small thing we do. We can not be answerable to each and every individual. We are blamed for the loss of a few crores during the telecast of Olympic matches on Doordarshan. But nobody bothers to understand that we cannot earn on each and every sports event we telecast. One cannot forget that Doordarshan is a public broadcaster too.

Everybody knows that cricket is the only sport which earns big money for us. This year, we are going to earn as much as Rs. 150 crores from DD Sports Channel. And this is mainly because of cricket. If we are earning this much money from our sports channel, can’t we afford to spend a few crores for the telecast rights of sports events which everybody likes to watch? Do you know how much money we have generated from the Olympics in the past? I must tell you that the money we made this year from Olympic is much more than what Doordarshan earned from the Olympics in previous years.

Today, DD Sports is not only a self-sufficient channel but it is also supporting the DD News Channel. A major part of the cost of the programming on DD News Channel is funded by DD Sports Channel. Is this a mean achievement?

In addition to Rs. 150 crore, we would be earning from subscriptions also. Today, the reach of sports channel is about six million homes. Out of this about 1.5 million is our paid reach.

It is said that DD News Channel has been receiving confusing signals from its bosses. Now you are starting six hour daily business programming on the news channel. What encouraged you to do this?

Our news channel is in a very good shape. We have decided to show business programming during daytime viewing (between 10 am to 4 pm) on the DD News channel. We felt business programming was the best way to increase our present viewership between 10 am to 4 pm. Now our business channel will ride over our News channel.

See, DD News channel is not exposed to the advertising market till now. Market and industry do not know much about the channel. We felt this was the best time to introduce DD News channel to the market by the way of starting a block of business programming on its platform so that business leaders and ad spenders could watch it.

We are also planning to insert advertisements in between hard news. We have not done this before but I think this will work out well. These steps could enable us to strengthen the DD News channel.

You must be knowing that DD News channel does not come under ‘a must carry clause’ (from the cable operator). But our viewership is increasing day by day.

According to the latest TAM rating viewership of DD News channel is 1.25 whereas STAR News’ rating is between 0.4 and 0.6. So I can say that DD News Channel is here to stay.

What are the other plans for this new programming?
We plan to add the interactive mode in our business programming. The business channel CNBC is basically a Mumbai-based channel. We want our business channel to get linked with major business centres of India including major metropolitans, so that we can claim to be a complete business channel of India.

Doordarshan has agreed to pay about Rs. 12 crore to Nimbus (of Harish Thawani) in a period of six months for the production of business programming on the News Channel. But Nimbus does not have any experience in the production of news-based programming.
Our main interest was to have one programmer who is not only good at production but also is a good marketeer. That was the reason we thought Nimbus would be right choice. Secondly, the idea of starting such programming on News channel came from Nimbus only. They told us that they would be able to do the marketing of the business programming as well.

If you ask me, why did we commission them for six months, I would say we are not the loser but would be gaining in the long run.
For the six months, whatever money we are giving them, we will receive the bank guarantee of the same amount from them. For example, if we pay Nimbus Rs. 2 crore in a month, they will provide a bank guarantee of the same amount to us. We are not going to give them any money after six months but their bank guarantee will remain with DD.

After six months, Nimbus is expected to come under sponsorship. They have promised us that they would bring sponsors for the business channel on DD news. If they back out of the contract, we are free to encash all the BGs provided by them. In a way, I can say that we are getting all programmes absolutely free of cost.
Recently, you have signed an agreement with a private channel B4U for the supply of movies to be telecast on DD1 and DD International. You could have done this on your own.

We had been showing B and C grade movies to our viewers. A lot of resentment among them guided us to do something better. Earlier we did not have any choice but to show really trash movies because we did not have rights of good and blockbuster movies. Our own source, NFDC (which used to provide movies to DD) doe snot have TV rights of blockbuster movies.

As you know, television rights of most of blockbuster movies have been cornered by satellite channels like STAR, Zee and B4U. Rival channels are ready to pay crores of rupees for the satellite rights of new films.

This is also sad for Doordarshan that it did not make much money during its contract (of supplying movies to DD) with NFDC. NFDC could not pay us the amount it promised to pay.

Why should DD depend on the money which actually did exist only on paper? Today, NFDC is the biggest defaulter of Doordarshan and it has to pay more than 50 crore to DD. That’s why we preferred to enter into revenue sharing arrangements with channels like B4U which holds the television rights of many new and blockbuster movies.

They have promised you crores of rupees but paid you just Rs. 30 lakh in the first week of their operation on DD.

They could give us only Rs. 30 lakh in the first week of their association with DD but we should not expect a huge amount from the very beginning considering their first hand experience on DD. I am sure they will start earning more money for us in the near future.

What is your reaction on the recent CBI raids on some of your officials.

This is very unfortunate. It is very difficult to build an organisation, improve its functioning and its image. For the last many months I have been trying to make DD a highly professional and transparent organisation. CBI raids is definitely a setback for us. We are waiting for CBI’s direction before we take any decision on these officials.

Amitabh Parashar

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