Prasar Bharati to be fully autonomous from April 1

Television

Prasar Bharati to be fully autonomous from April 1

As reported in these columns earlier, the Prasar Bharati Corporation is going to be a full-fledged autonomous body from April 1 this year.

DD’s viewership has increased mainly because of a three-pronged strategy vigorously pursued by Prasar Bharati to improve the reception quality of DD signals in C & S homes, improvement in the presentation of Doordarshan channels and inclusion of a wide variety of new software on DD, offering a bouquet of programmes catering to all sections of viewers.

According to an official press release, the Prasar Bharati Corporation has initiated all necessary arrangements and preparations related to accounting and fund management so that it can operate on its own receipts and grants in and received from the government from April 1.

Prasar Bharati is to receive a grant in aid amounting to Rs. 963 crore to cover the gap in its resources in meeting its revenue expenditure.

Prasar Bharati, for the first time, will also get a loan in this financial year to the tune of Rs. 170.30 crore to finance its capital expenditure. The total budgetary support of Prasar Bharati has thus been fixed at Rs. 1,130.30 crore.

The estimates for the current year for Doordarshan are Rs. 485.50 crore (while the revised expenditure on Akashwani for 1999-2000 is Rs. 533.37 crore as against the original allocation of Rs. 490.02 crore. The original allocation of DD was Rs. 406.98 crore.

The gross budget support for Information and Broadcasting ministry under plan is Rs. 270 crore and a sum of Rs. 48.31 crore is earmarked for the projects of the North-East and Sikkim.

The total expenditure budget for broadcasting for the new financial year is listed as Rs. 1,384 crore. In the revised estimates for 1999-2000 the expenditure on the broadcasting sector is Rs. 1,018.77 crore as against the budgetary allocation of Rs. 897 crore.

Although public broadcaster Doordarshan’s revenue is going down, its viewership is increasing. This is what Television Audience Measurement System and other related methods indicate. In a period of last seven months, there has been a dramatic and steady increase in Doordarshan’s viewership. On DD1, the rise in viewership during the time slot of 9 p.m. to midnight has been 57 per cent in the metros and mini-metros, between June 1999 and January 2000.
According to Television Audience Movement (TAM) system, the average number of DD1 viewers in this time band in the nine cities was 25.68 lakhs in June 1999 and this has steadily increased to 40.39 in January 2000.

TAM has now been extended to cover 27 cities with a population of one lakh and above. In these cities too, the trend is quite similar - the average number of viewers on DD1, in the time band 8 p.m. to midnight was 54.75 lakhs in August 1999 (When the system was extended to 27 units) and has increased to 78.96 lakhs in January 2000 - an increase of 44 per cent over a period of four months.

TAM also covers one lakh plus cities in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh. Except for UP, all the cities covered by TAM have indicated a stiff competition for viewership from private regional language channels and also a high level of cable infiltration. However, in spite of these factors, DD has shown great resilience.

According to DD officials, this increase has been mainly because of a three-pronged strategy vigorously pursued by Prasar Bharati to improve the reception quality of DD signals in C & S homes, improvement in the presentation of Doordarshan channels and inclusion of a wide variety of new software on DD, offering a bouquet of programmes catering to all sections of viewers.