Date : 3 Jan 2012
At long last, it seems, public broadcaster Prasar Bharati has woken up to the need of smartly packaged news programmes presented by professionals alive to the taste of audience.
Prasar Bharati is quietly going about hiring recognised anchors from popular private channels who, it believes, will lead the revival of its moribund DD News , its main news outlet which is hardly watched by anyone having the option of tuning into private broadcasters.
The exercise, it is learnt, is part of an ambitious plan of the I&B ministry to shore up its rock-bottom ratings and run it in a more professional way.
I&B Minister Manish Tewari i s a votary of these reforms and made it clear that Prasar Bharti, which eats up over 65 per cent of ministry's budget, will have to make its presence felt in the industry.
In a first, it has been building its marketing team to sell slots in DD News' prime time band to bring in moolah from private sponsors.
"We have extended our invitation to several professionals and are offering them the best terms possible within our set-up. We will also give them the required support, technology equipment and, more importantly, space to function more effectively," Prasar Bharti CEO Jawhar Sircar toldMail Today.
Veteran journalist Sanjeev Srivastava (earlier with BBC) and Pranjal Sharma, who was with Bloomberg TV, have already joined in different capacities. So has Ajay Shukla, a defence expert.
A host of private channels anchors, including Pallavi Ghosh of CNN-IBN, Mehraj Dube of NDTV and Ravi Dhiman too, have been approached by the broadcaster.
These anchors will be given slots in the prime time between 8 pm and 10 pm and after presenting top news at the hour will begin debates on different issues ala private channels.
Most of them will draw monthly salary in handsome six digits, a cause of some consternation among the old guards.
Read more at:http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/prasar-bharati-revamp-private-channel-anchors-dd-news-manish-tewari/1/240535.html
Both All India Radio and DD need to completely revamp their news gathering, writing and presentation. At present their presentations all thoroughly lacklustre.
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