Prasar Bharati to spread reach of DD's international channel

Source: Business Standard | Press Trust of India | New Delhi March 3, 2013 Last Updated at 10:30 IST

 

Aiming to shore up its presence globally, national broadcaster Prasar Bharati is planning to hire a consulting agency to spread the reach of Doordarshan's international channel DD India.

Sources said Prasar Bharati has already begun its search for agencies.

"We have already invited expression of interest for eligible consulting agencies who can help in global distribution of DD India through suitable delivery platforms like Direct to Home, cable or IPTV in different regions of the world," a source said.

Sources said that firms with the required expertise can make their proposals by March 22.

To establish its reach worldwide, Doordarshan launched its international channel DD World in March, 1995 which was renamed as DD India in 2002.

DD India was launched with a mission to build bridges of communication with Indians living abroad and to showcase the India's culture, values, traditions, diversity, and unity to the world through high-quality programmes.

DD India is currently up-linked from New Delhi and can be watched in 146 countries through PAS -9 and PAS -10 satellites.

The channel carries news bulletins, features on topical events, entertainment programmes, feature films, music and dance, children programmes, events and tourism.

In addition to Hindi and English, programmes in Urdu, Punjabi, Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam, Gujarati and Marathi form the channel's content.

 

Link: http://www.business-standard.com/article/pti-stories/prasar-bharati-to-spread-reach-of-dd-s-international-channel-113030300037_1.html

Prasar Bharati takes adequate steps to improve transmission quality: Tewari

Source: radioandmusic.com | RnM Team 12 Mar 13 12:12 IST

 

NEW DELHI: Information and Broadcasting (I&B) Minister Manish Tewari today assured Parliament that the time of Urdu news from the Hyderabad Kendra of Doordarshan would be increased as the need arises.

The Minister said Prasar Bharati has informed that 44 regional units of News Services Division, All India Radio, broadcast regional news bulletins.

In addition to this, a regional news unit has been set up at Kargil in Jammu and Kashmir which broadcasts regional news bulletins.

In Doordarshan, 29 regional news units telecast regional news from its various Kendras.

He said in reply to another supplementary question that both AIR and Doordarshan regularly transmit programmes which help the farmer in learning about various cultivation techniques and keeping him updated about the latest in this particular field.

There are 48 regional news bulletins in 18 languages, which are produced centrally from the News Service Division of AIR. In addition to this, 181 bulletins in 74 languages are produced and broadcast from the RNUs, and this covers the 22 scheduled languages.

There are 1019 news-based programmes from RNUs in 21 languages which are broadcast. And this totally amounts to 117 hours and 15 minutes of programming per week. In addition to that, you have 290 headline bulletins from FM Rainbow in 15 languages.

He accepted a suggestion to make the news as local as possible and content rich and more focussed on local imperatives.

Tewari said in reply to another supplementary that Prasar Bharati had been taking steps to augment infrastructure both in terms of gathering of news and dissemination of news in Doordarshan and AIR. A process has been started of digitizing the various studios of Doordarshan to ensure that the quality of news which is broadcast is of the optimum level and this project will be completed by 2017. A total of 145 stations are currently being digitized.

In AIR, there are complaints which have come in that the medium wave transmission is not audible, and that, to a certain extent, is correct because over the years, the power of the transmitters have gone low because these are legacy equipment.

A total of 71 transmitters have been replaced in the 11th Plan and the power of 33 medium wave FM transmitters is being upgraded to see that broadcasting becomes better.

Prasar Bharati is also in the process of recruiting additional people and 1150 vacancies have been sanctioned.

NEW DELHI: Information and Broadcasting (I&B) Minister Manish Tewari today assured Parliament that the time of Urdu news from the Hyderabad Kendra of Doordarshan would be increased as the need arises.

The Minister said Prasar Bharati has informed that 44 regional units of News Services Division, All India Radio, broadcast regional news bulletins.

In addition to this, a regional news unit has been set up at Kargil in Jammu and Kashmir which broadcasts regional news bulletins.

In Doordarshan, 29 regional news units telecast regional news from its various Kendras.

He said in reply to another supplementary question that both AIR and Doordarshan regularly transmit programmes which help the farmer in learning about various cultivation techniques and keeping him updated about the latest in this particular field.

There are 48 regional news bulletins in 18 languages, which are produced centrally from the News Service Division of AIR. In addition to this, 181 bulletins in 74 languages are produced and broadcast from the RNUs, and this covers the 22 scheduled languages.

There are 1019 news-based programmes from RNUs in 21 languages which are broadcast. And this totally amounts to 117 hours and 15 minutes of programming per week. In addition to that, you have 290 headline bulletins from FM Rainbow in 15 languages.

He accepted a suggestion to make the news as local as possible and content rich and more focussed on local imperatives.

Tewari said in reply to another supplementary that Prasar Bharati had been taking steps to augment infrastructure both in terms of gathering of news and dissemination of news in Doordarshan and AIR. A process has been started of digitizing the various studios of Doordarshan to ensure that the quality of news which is broadcast is of the optimum level and this project will be completed by 2017. A total of 145 stations are currently being digitized.

In AIR, there are complaints which have come in that the medium wave transmission is not audible, and that, to a certain extent, is correct because over the years, the power of the transmitters have gone low because these are legacy equipment.

A total of 71 transmitters have been replaced in the 11th Plan and the power of 33 medium wave FM transmitters is being upgraded to see that broadcasting becomes better.

Prasar Bharati is also in the process of recruiting additional people and 1150 vacancies have been sanctioned.

Link: http://www.radioandmusic.com/content/editorial/news/prasar-bharati-takes-adequate-steps-improve-transmission-quality-tewari

Reforming Prasar Bharati

Courtesy: Imphal Free Press

By B.G. Verghese, Saturday, 09 March 2013

Among the agenda of reforms being urged or promised, few are more needed, and overdue, than the grant of autonomy to the public service broadcaster, PrasarBharati. This, hopefully, is now on the anvil and, apart from preliminary steps already taken, such as a more professional approach to newscasting, a Committee has been set up under Sam Pitroda to make specific recommendations for the future. The new Minister for I&B, Manish Tewari, has come in with a new broom and some cobwebs have started disappearing.

The Government’s communication policy, or rather the appalling lack of one, has had a crippling effect on public relations and national morale as AIR and DD came to be used as a propaganda trumpet rather than as a voice of India to its multitudinous diversity. Now that reform is promised, one must beware inventing a solution in search of a problem.  That such a danger lurks is evident in a roundtable broadcast over DD recently where there was a certain lack of clarity on the subject.

The first fallacy is that PrasarBharati (PB) is His Master’s Voice, a creature of the Union Government. This it is not. It is a national public trust whose purpose and functions are spelt out in Section 12 of the PB Act, 1990. Prime among these is “safeguarding the citizen’s right to be informed freely, truthfully and objectively on all matters of public interest, national or international, and presenting  affair and balanced  flow of information, including contrasting views, without advocating any opinion or ideology of its own”. The Act requires Parliament to make due appropriations for PB which is accountable to it through the Ministry of I&B and its annual report. Additional funding is permitted through broadcast receiver licence fees, currently not levied, commercial broadcasting, sale of programmes, etc.

Broadcast information is a service like the supply of electricity, water and telephony; but, unlike the others, it is somehow considered a free good. The PB Act permits the Corporation to levy fees for all external and monitoring services in the same manner as the BBC is funded by the Foreign Office for its external services. This is not being done. It is however being selectively paid for other home service extension broadcasts, though not in a uniform, standardised manner. 

Personnel policy has been a huge millstone around PB’s neck as the bulk of its staff remain seconded from government cadres and are therefore under the discipline of the Department of Personnel.  Lazy staffers prefer the security of government service while the government enjoys the power of cadre control. There is a fierce official reluctance to let go.  Even the CEO, Directors of Finance and Personnel and other senior staff are primarily selected from among government servants. There are certainly good people in the official ranks but to exclude others in the first place is clearly anomalous. In-house engineers too are excluded from programme jobs. This again is discriminatory and makes no sense. This is autonomy with fetters.

In a classic case, S.Y. Quraishi, a Haryana IAS cadre officer,  selected by PB’s first in-house recruitment board to be DG Doordarshan, was summarily removed by an illegal and underhand Governmental fiat for the ostensible reason than that his cadre control officer allegedly wanted him back in Government!

PB has been a hardware-led organisation with a surfeit of transmitters and relay stations and a corresponding complement of engineers who far outnumber the programme staff. This is a top-heavy structure with huge idle capacity and a paucity of programme content or staff. It had neglected foreign language development with the loss of the old monitoring service and is unable satisfactorily to reach the world outside its borders. Great events are currently going on in all of South Asia, but PB has little capacity or capability to reach out and report let alone interpret these events to its domestic audience. People tune into the BBC and CNN to find out what is going on in Bangladesh and Myanmar, Southeast and West Asia, Africa, China and Latin America. It has few foreign correspondents or stringers. Equally, the voice of India is scarcely heard abroad.

Why should PB not have regular daily and weekly bulletins or round ups on its near and further neighbourhood with good commentaries on economic, political and cultural developments.  Where are the in-house commentators and in-house productions that once made AIR and early-PB lively channels? The talent is there.  Likewise, why should PB not have more community and local broadcasts to reach out and down to the grassroots as intended, because of a crippling paucity of programme staff?

One answer would be to farm out idle time to local community broadcasters and institutions on payment so that the transmitters are optimally utilised. Some franchising is being done but not in a structured manner. The other option- and the two are not mutually exclusive - would be to hive off the entire transmission system into an independent PB Transmission Corporation that would be free to service private and commercial broadcasters  and become an independent and highly remunerative profit centre. Such a proposition was indeed examined by a committee PB appointed quite some years back under the late P.V Indiresan, in collaboration with the French broadcasting organisation, and found feasible. Unfortunately the idea was not pursued as PB was mired in its own problems and inhibitions.

More at: http://www.ifp.co.in/nws-12841-reforming-prasar-bharati/

Doordarshan to start HD transmission in metros | Real Time News, India

Doordarshan to start HD transmission in metros | Real Time News, India

By Trisha Thomas on Fri, 03/08/2013 - 12:20
Courtesy: Real Time News, India

Doordarshan is setting up a free high-definition (HD) broadcasting system in the four cities of Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai, the ministry of information and broadcasting said.
Free terrestrial broadcasting of HD-quality TV channels is likely to be a novelty in a country where nearly 99% of the people watch low-definition (SD or standard definition) channels only.
However, about 20-30% of the households have HD-compatible television sets and a smaller subset of the customers would have full-HD enabled television sets.
Nearly all TVs sold in India are HD-compatible, and an estimated 30% of the TVs sold are full-HD (1080p) enabled.
However, the transmission of HD programs has lagged the adoption of HD TVs due to the high number of channels being broadcast in India.
India currently has about 650 active TV channels. A full-HD channel, such as Movies Now HD, would require about 8-10 times the bandwidth of a standard definition (SD) channel. In other words, TV channel providers such as cable operators and DTH companies would be able to offer only about 35-50 channels instead of the current 300-400 channels if they switched over to HD.
The highest number of HD channels currently on offer is by Airtel Digital, which provides about a dozen 1080i channels.
Doordarshan started an HD channel nearly three years ago, and transmits for 3 hours per day due to the lack of HD content.

It is currently setting up HDTV Studios at Delhi and Mumbai , HDTV field production, post production and preview facilities at Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai and HDTV OB Vans for Delhi and Mumbai.
They will create content for the HDTV terrestrial transmitters at Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai.
HDTV will not be delivered in the analogue mode as DDs programs are currently transmitted, but in the digital mode. As such, users will need to buy a set top box costing about Rs 2500-3500 simply to watch a single channel from Doordarshan.
DTH and cable operators are selling HD set top boxes for about Rs 4,500.

More at : http://rtn.asia/1563_doordarshan-start-hd-transmission-metros

Prasar Bharati staff cases remain pending in CAT and courts

Source: Radioandmusic.com | by RnM Team

Dated: 05 Mar 13 15:28 IST

 

NEW DELHI: 43 per cent of All India Radio (AIR) court cases have been cleared, while a large number of them are still pending. Out of 516 cases 12 have been decided in favour of the staff by the Central Administrative Tribunal and various courts.

 

A large number of these cases are now pending in appeal in various courts. The issues was raised and discussed in Parliament recently.

 

Prasar Bharati sources said that the Recruitment Regulations for various categories of Prasar Bharati employees were notified during 2000-2002.

 

However, these were kept in abeyance by Prasar Bharati as the terms and conditions were not acceptable to the employees. The amendments made to Section 11 of the Prasar Bharati Act in 2012 has settled the status of employees working in Prasar Bharati. In pursuance to amendments to Section 11, it was decided to frame new Recruitment Regulations governing the service conditions of the employees recruited by Prasar Bharati after 5 October 2007.

 

Following approval of Prasar Bharati's Board, the Government has already communicated its approval for the Recruitment Regulations in respect of 4 categories of staff, viz. Cameraman Grade-II, Engineering Assistant, Technician and Head Clerk/ Assistant (for notification).

 

Link: http://www.radioandmusic.com/content/editorial/news/prasar-bharati-staff-cases-remain-pending-cat-and-courts

Huge number of cases relating to Prasar Bharati staff pending in CAT and courts

Source: Indiantelevision.com

(5 March 2013 02:39 pm)

NEW DELHI: As many as 120 of 281 cases in Doordarshan and 12 out of 516 cases in All India Radio (AIR) have been decided in favour of the staff by the Central Administrative Tribunal and various courts. A large number of these cases are now pending in appeal in various courts. Prasar Bharati sources said the Recruitment Regulations for various categories of Prasar Bharati employees were notified during 2000-2002. However, these were kept in abeyance by Prasar Bharati as the terms and conditions were not acceptable to the employees. The amendments made to Section 11 of the Prasar Bharati Act in 2012 has settled the status of employees working in Prasar Bharati. In pursuance to amendments to Section-11, it was decided to frame new Recruitment Regulations governing the service conditions of the employees recruited by Prasar Bharati after 5 October 2007. Following approval of Prasar Bharati's Board, the Government has already communicated its approval for the Recruitment Regulations in respect of 4 categories of staff, viz. Cameraman Grade-II, Engineering Assistant, Technician and Head Clerk/ Assistant (for notification).   Link: http://www.indiantelevision.com/headlines/y2k13/mar/mar36.php

Doordarshan diplomacy

1 MARCH 2013 , Gateway House

Source: Gateway House

Doordarshan, India's national TV broadcaster, has been long known for its low production quality, and the lack of a global reach. With India's steady rise as an economic power, there is increasing curiosity about India in the world. How can Doordarshan promote India's interests in the global market?

BY

 Sambuddha Mitra Mustafi

FELLOW, SWANITI INITIATIVE

In the information world, the country with the better story wins. One of the big weaknesses of India's foreign policy today is that we do not tell our own story to the world – we leave that job to foreign media outlets with a global presence. India has the world's largest free media, but none with a truly global reach and influence like BBC, CNN, New York Times or even new entrants like Al-Jazeera, CCTV or Russia Today.

This anomaly needs to change quickly: if India wants to be a serious global player, it needs a credible global voice, one that goes beyond Bollywood.

National Innovation Council Chairman Sam Pitroda is heading the latest committee set up to suggest changes in the functioning of Prasar Bharati, which oversees Doordarshan and All India Radio. Already, plans are afoot to launch Doordarshan television in Africa for the first time, a continent where Indian business has substantial and growing stakes, and where the Chinese media is already making waves, even moving ahead of established players there like the BBC.

All of India watches Doordarshan, but it has severe limitations, most acute of which is that funding comes from the government, making it vulnerable to political interference. To top that, the administration is run by bureaucrats, not journalists. So while on paper Prasar Bharati is an autonomous body, in its funding and administration it still functions very much like a government organization, which has killed its credibility as an independent media outlet.

The government should look at options like the license fee model of funding, where if each of India's 150 million TV households paid Rs 5 (10 cents) a month, it would generate $168 million (Rs. 840 crore) in revenue annually. This is eminently do-able. Last year, BBC News and BBC Parliament put together had an operating expenditure of only $105 million (Rs. 525 crore). In 1996, Al-Jazeera started with an initial grant of $137 million (Rs. 685 crore).

More at: http://www.gatewayhouse.in/publication/gateway-house/features/doordarshan-diplomacy

www.outlookindia.com | Recasting Ouch

www.outlookindia.com | Recasting Ouch

DOORDARSHAN: REVAMP

Recasting Ouch

A new team leads the DD revamp, leaving the old guard fuming

ANURADHA RAMAN

What do you do if you are a public service broadcaster and elections are just around the corner? You rejig your news channel and hope that your constituency—that inscrutable mass that is the voters—will notice the good work of the government. Back in 2004, the BJP-led NDA had done it. Cut to 2013, the Congress-led UPA is doing the same, though the scale of the revamp is much more modest. The BJP put up a whole new team in place, with spiffy anchors hired from rival news channels and having on its rolls those close to the political dispensation. But it lost the election in 2004 and the news team disappeared into the studios of other news and current affairs channels.
Yet again, DD is waking up to the competition, and elections. For the time being, the current rejig is being confined to the prime band between eight and 10.30 pm. The advertisements have already begun in right earnest, exhorting viewers all of last week to tune into News Night—a current affairs programme in Hindi and English which made a low-key debut on January 28. Sources say close to Rs 4 crore have alr­eady been spent on the advertising.


Even with its CEOs, DD has always attracted the criticism that they are drawn from among those perceived to be close to the ruling dispensation. It is the same with incumbent CEO Jawhar Sircar, who came in a little over a year ago and who sources say is keen on the Doordarshan revamping project. In fact, so enthusiastic is the gentleman that he apparently shoots off mails to colleagues, directing them to apportion some airtime to him—as he moves from one public engagement to another!

More at: http://www.outlookindia.com/printarticle.aspx?284091

Prasar Bharati's revenue dips by Rs 3.23 bn in FY'13

Source: indiantelevision.com| 

Indiantelevision.com Team

(1 March2013 8:46 pm)

NEW DELHI: The financial woes of the Prasar Bharati continue well into the current financial year. For the nine months ended 31 December 2012, the pubcaster has seen a Rs 3.23 billion drop in revenues despite having simulcast shows from private satellite broadcasters like Star Plus' Aamir Khan-anchored Satyamev Jayate and Zee TV's Ramayan. The Olympics in July also did not help shore up the revenues this fiscal. Prasar Bharati has reported a revenue of Rs 10.86 billion for the first nine months of the fiscal, down from Rs 14.09 billion a year ago. The loss, however, has narrowed as the pubcaster has drastically reduced its costs. The expenditure incurred by Prasar Bharati for the nine months ended December 2012 was Rs 23.95 billion compared to Rs 33.40 billion a year ago. The Government had in September last year approved a Financial Restructuring package for Prasar Bharati comprising 100 per cent salary support for five years, waiver of accumulated government debt, space and spectrum charges etc. The increase in expenditure during the past few years has been primarily due to the implementation of various recommendations of the Sixth Central Pay Commission. Link: http://www.indiantelevision.com/headlines/y2k13/mar/mar7.php

Call for Suggestions for the Expert Committee on Prasar Bharati | Prasar Bharati Committee

Call for Suggestions for the Expert Committee on Prasar Bharati | Prasar Bharati Committee

The Government of India has set up an Expert Committee under the chairpersonship of Mr Sam Pitroda to review the functioning of Prasar Bharati. The committee’s terms of reference include sustaining, strengthening and amplification of Prasar Bharati’s role as a public broadcaster, with a special reference to its relationship with Government, in the emerging context; a review of the status of implementation of recommendations made by various committees that have undertaken the study of Prasar Bharati, and suggesting a roadmap for enhancing Prasar Bharati's reach and potential; digitisation of the archival material in the possession of Doordarshan and All India Radio, including material from the Independence Movement era, and the development of enabling infrastructure; use of new media to deliver digital content; ensuring a wider reach to a worldwide audience; and any other statutory issue. The committee has decided to study all relevant areas related to Prasar Bharati, viz., the Prasar Bharati-Government relationship, technology, business development, finance, HR & organisation, content & programming, archiving, presence on social and other new & emerging media platforms, global initiatives, regulatory mechanism, and comparison with other public service broadcasters.

The committee has invited views/suggestions from the public on its terms of reference, including in relation to the areas mentioned above. Accordingly, all interested persons and organisations are requested to send their views/suggestion by 14th April 2013 at

• Online Form - http://www.prasarbharaticommittee.in/feedback
• or via post addressed to
  PRASAR BHARATI COMMITTEE SECRETARIAT
  2nd Floor, PTI Building Sansad Marg, New Delhi-110001

Budget 2013: Prasar Bharati gets grants-in-aid, but no govt investment | Editorial-News | Radioandmusic.com

Budget 2013: Prasar Bharati gets grants-in-aid, but no govt investment | Editorial-News | Radioandmusic.com
Courtesy: RnM Team    28 Feb 13 17:03 IST

NEW DELHI: Even as the grants-in-aid for Prasar Bharati has been raised from the revised estimates of Rs 17.2904 billion to Rs 21.8037 billion, there is no separate investment by the government in the public broadcaster.
In the budget of 2012-13, the government had made investments of Rs 2.8266 billion according to revised estimates though the budget for the year had set aside a provision of Rs 4.01 billion. However, there is provision for investment of Rs 2 billion from Internal and extra-budgetary resources for Prasar Bharati.
An explanatory memorandum says that the grants-in-aid towards meeting the salary and salary related expenditure.
Prasar Bharati sources told Radioandmusic.com that this had been done to meet the extra expenditure on salaries which has fallen on the shoulders of the Government since all Prasar Bharati employees who were in employment as on 5 October 2007 have been given deemed deputation status.
Contrary to expectations, the government has not set aside any amount specifically for marking the centenary of Indian cinema or digitization of the cable television sector.
However, the allocation under ‘Secretariat-Social Services’ covering centenary celebrations and digitization has gone up to Rs 1.437 billion from the revised estimates of Rs 1.0335 billion.
The total budget of the I&B Ministry has been raised to Rs 30.3565 billion for 2013-14 against the revised budget of Rs 26.934 billion (against the initial allocation of Rs 27.3732 billion) for the previous year.
An explanatory note says that Secretariat-Social services also covers expenses on development of community radio, development support to the north-east as well as Jammu and Kashmir and ‘other identified areas’, promotion of Indian cinema through film festivals and film markets in India and abroad, production of films and documentaries in various Indian languages, National Film Heritage Mission, anti-piracy initiatives, the proposed National Centre for Animation and Gaming, and automation of broadcast services.
The allocation under the Film Sector has, unlike last year, been increased to Rs 1.1717 billion for 2013-14. Last year, the budget for the film sector was Rs 841.1 million though the revised estimates had put this figure at Rs 888.8 million. There is an additional outlay of Rs 70.4 million towards certification of cinematographic films.
For the fourth year in a row, the government has not announced any investment in the National Film Development Corporation.
The allocation for Press Information Services which includes grants to the Press Council of India has been marginally

More at: http://www.radioandmusic.com/content/editorial/news/budget-2013-prasar-bharati-get-enhanced-grants-aid-no-govt-investment