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Shah
to continue as CEO, Prasar Bharati, but ...
The matter of having a permanent CEO of Prasar Bharati Corporation
has been further delayed for atleast another six months.
The present CEO Rajiv Ratan Shah, who is a special secretary
in the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting, has been
given an extension of six months as the CEO of the corporation
by Sushma Swaraj recently.
Swaraj, during a press conference recently had stated that
she had sent two letters to the Vice-President of India, who
is the head of a three member panel to select the Prasar Bharati
Board members, requesting him to recommend names for the post
of CEO, Member, Finance and Member, Personnel, after clarifying
the terms and conditions of their appointments.
Meanwhile, the name of Kiran Karnik is taking rounds for the
post of the CEO. Kiran Karnik recently left Discovery Channel
and currently he is jobless.
Another rumour is that TVR Shenoy will be asked to join as
the Chairman of the Prasar Bharati Corporation. This post
has been lying vacant since the death of Nikhil Chakravorthy
two years ago. TVR Shenoy is one of three members of the selection
panel constituted for the selection of the Prasar Bharati
Board Members.
But media analysis are of the opinion that Prasar Bharati
needs a good administrator, preferably an IAS officer for
the post of CEO, as it is more or less an administrative job.
A senior I&B official said "R.R. Shah has done excellent
job as the adhoc CEO of Prasar Bharati. Where is the problem
if he is selected by the panel as the permanent CEO of the
corporation?"
In fact, it is also learnt that Sushma Swaraj, the Minister
of I&B, who had certain reservations against Shah, has
realised that Shah is the best person for a corporation like
Prasar Bharati.
In addition to earning huge revenue for Doordarshan, Shah
has almost revived a dying DD Metro.
DD Metro had decided to auction the slot between 10 p.m. to
12.30 for one year. The minimum amount it expects to earn
is about 26 crore from these slots. The five half-hour slots
on DD-2 from 10 p.m. to be auctioned from April 2001 will
have free commercial time of 300 seconds (for half hour) per
day.
Floor prices are Rs. 15 crore from 10.00 to 10.30, Rs. 7.5
crore from 10.30 to 11.00 p.m., Rs. 2 crore from 11.00 to
11.30 p.m., Rs. 1.5 crore fro 11.30 to 12.00 p.m. and Rs.
50 lakh for midnight.
On the DTH front, on one hand, DD is looking for partners,
while on the other hand, it is also giving ready to have Digital
Terristorial Television (DTT), through which Prime Television
Network can reach over 80 per cent of country’s population.
Amitabh Parashar
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