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Tag: BS Lalli

  • Maintain sobriety instead of presenting news in a sensational manner: Lalli

    Maintain sobriety instead of presenting news in a sensational manner: Lalli

    NEW DELHI: In India’s highly cluttered private satellite television news market, the Prasar Bharati chief executive officer BS Lalli has a message: maintain sobriety instead of presenting news in a sensational manner.

    While applauding the move by the TV news industry to self-regulate in a purposeful fashion, Lalli stressed on the need to maintain the sensibilities of the people in a widely pluralistic country.

    “I am happy to note that news channels have been fairly responsible in their coverage and have been indulging in self-regulation of content. Sobriety rather than sensationalism should be the requirement of the hour,” Lalli said here today, while inaugurating the third Indian News Television (NT) Summit.

    He said DD News, which airs 16 hours of live news daily, continued to remain the only bilingual news channel telecasting in Hindi and English, apart from bulletins in Urdu and Sanskrit.

    The primary aim of the government and the public broadcaster was to reach those large areas still uncovered by television so that citizens could be “empowered with objective facts and dispassionate analysis” since this was the “heart and hallmark of a democracy”.

    Lalli said TV had seen phenomenal growth in the country and from just Doordarshan in the early nineties, the country now had over 500 channels being downlinked to Indian viewers, opening up the skies to rapid expansion.

    All India Radio had added around 122 news bulletins over the past few years in different languages, he added.

  • Isro being approached for more transponders for DD Direct

    Isro being approached for more transponders for DD Direct

    NEW DELHI: Doordarshan is expected to switch over to an Indian satellite Insat 4B by early May for its direct-to-home DD Direct service, but it is unlikely to get more than five transponders. The satellite is being launched 10 March from Kourou in French Guiana.

    Prasar Bharati sources tell indiantelevision.com that though the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) had been requested to give first priority to the public broadcaster in the matter of leasing transponders, it was learnt that the Sun Group owned by Kalanithi Maran may get six transponders for its Sun Direct DTH and one for digital satellite news gathering.

    The sources said Isro had been approached to clarify the air on the number of channels it could give to Doordarshan, particularly in view of the efforts by the public broadcaster to switch over to an Indian satellite and not spend money in foreign currency for the American-owned NSS-6 satellite.

    The switchover is expected to result in a saving of around $5 million and Prasar Bharati chief executive officer BS Lalli confirmed that he had turned down the reminder by the American satellite for a renewal of contract.

    (It is learnt that Isro agreed to the demand for Sun for transponders after the failure of the Insat-4C last year. However, Isro has given the option to Sun to take transponders on a foreign satellite with the help of the space agency, since Insat 4B was meant for DD Direct.)

    Switching over to the new satellite will mean rotating the dish antennas slightly from the existing 95 degrees to 93.5 degrees. Lalli does not think any re-programming of
    set-top boxes will be required but said that this could be done easily if needed.

    The Insat-4B, the second satellite in the Insat-4 series, will be carrying 12 Ku band and as many C band transponders for communication and broadcasting services. Airtel is understood to have booked transponders for its services.