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Tag: Doordarshan

  • E-auction for six DTH slots for DD Free Dish next week

    E-auction for six DTH slots for DD Free Dish next week

    NEW DELHI: The 14th online e-auction for filling up six slots for the direct-to-home (DTH) service of Doordarshan Freedish will be conducted on 11 and 12 August beginning with a reserve price of Rs 3 crore.

     

    The e-Auction will be conducted by Synise Technologies, Pune on behalf of Prasar Bharati.

     

    Prasar Bharati CEO Jawhar Sircar said earlier this week that the aim was to reach the target of 97 channels by October-end and 125 by March-end.

     

    The eligibility terms and conditions including other relevant details for this e-auction are displayed on DD website: www.ddindia.gov.in.

     

    The participation amount (EMD) is Rs 1.5 crore which will be deposited in advance on or before 11 August by 12:00 noon along with processing fee of Rs 10,000 (Non-refundable) in favour of PB (BCI) Doordarshan Commercial Service, New Delhi.

     

    Applicants have to deposit a Demand Draft of Rs 5,500 as registration amount (mandatory) favouring Synise Technologies, payable at Pune at the time of submission of the application.

     

    The applicants must provide their e-mail address, contact numbers and uplink/downlink permission documents received from the concerned ministries, failing which their application will not be entertained in any case.

     

    The demand drafts of unsuccessful bidders will be returned immediately or within a week after the e-auction process is completed.

  • MSOs, LCOs asked to take DD channels only from C-Band

    MSOs, LCOs asked to take DD channels only from C-Band

    NEW DELHI: Sticking to its promise of ensuring that Doordarshan channels are made available across all cable and DTH platforms, Information and Broadcasting (I&B) Minister Prakash Javadekar has taken the positive step.

     

    Reiterating that it is mandatory to carry 24 channels of Doordarshan in digital addressable system areas and eight channels in non-DAS areas, the Government today also stressed that it was necessary that all multi-system operators (MSOs) and cable operators to take only C-band signals of Doordarshan channels.  

     

    In the advisory, the I&B Ministry said that the mandatory carriage had been notified in September 2013.

     

    However, some MSOs were taking the DD beam from the Ku-band of DD’s DTH service, resulting in inferior quality of transmission of DD channels. Furthermore, some MSOs were not even carrying the mandatory channels, according to Prasar Bharati.

     

    In this context, the Ministry said Para 3 of the 5 September 2013 notification was clear that only C-band signals had to be taken ‘for retransmission by dish antenna/television Receive of not less than 12 feet diameter, and Yagi antenna, to ensure good quality reception’. 

  • Gov asks Prasar Bharati to work out action plan for implementing Sam Pitroda Committee report: Javadekar

    Gov asks Prasar Bharati to work out action plan for implementing Sam Pitroda Committee report: Javadekar

    NEW DELHI: Prasar Bharati has been asked to prepare an action plan for undertaking the studies/reviews/audits on recommendations of the Sam Pitroda Committee.

     

    Information and Broadcasting Minister Prakash Javadekar told Parliament today that the pubcaster had been asked to apprise the Ministry about the outcome reports.

     

    In his reply, the Minister said that the report included recommendation of a study of independent sources of finances of Prasar Bharati.

     

    Meanwhile, a senior Prasar Bharati official who did not want to be named said that the Ministry should first clarify whether it has accepted or rejected the Pitroda report.

     

    The Pitroda Committee set up to review the working of Prasar Bharati had in its report in January this year stressed the need for constituting a Parliamentary Committee, as originally envisaged in the Prasar Bharati Act 1990 to ensure that the pubcaster discharges its duties in accordance with the provisions of the Act and Government defined duties.

     

    In the report submitted to the then Information and Broadcasting Minister Manish Tewari, it had recommended reorganisation of the pubcaster’s Board to make it a professionally managed body and make it more effective in guiding the organisation.

     

    Pitroda noted that Prasar Bharati’s vision must be to become a genuine ‘public broadcaster’ as against a ‘government broadcaster’.

     

    The report said there is need to effectively complete transfer of ownership and management of assets and human resource to Prasar Bharati ‘to make the organisation administratively and financially autonomous of government.’

     

    A regulatory body has to be set up to ensure public accountability of Prasar Bharati with respect to all content broadcast on its television and radio networks. The regulatory body should be a sub-committee of the Prasar Bharati Board.

     

    Interestingly, the Committee has suggested setting up of Prasar Bharati Connect (PBC) as the third arm of the public service broadcaster, independent of Doordarshan and All India Radio, to expand the social media. PBC should be mandated to manage the various social media initiatives of all the wings of Prasar Bharati. It also wants a social media strategy of Prasar Bharati.

     

    The Committee was set up on 28 January last year and had decided to set up 11 working groups on different issues and has now come out with a report on eight main areas: governance and organisation, funding, human resource, content, technology, archiving, social media and global outreach.

     

    It has said that in addition to the public broadcasting function, there is a distinct requirement for the state to broadcast messages and accomplishments of public interest which can be met by using existing public and private broadcaster infrastructure.

     

    The Committee suggests amending the 1990 Act was necessary so as to impart genuine and effective autonomy to the organisation.

     

    Apart from Pitroda who is advisor to the Prime Minister of India on Public Information Infrastructure & Innovation and chairman of the National Innovation Council, the other members include additional secretary and nominated Prasar Bharati Board member J S Mathur. National Innovation Council member Shekhar Kapur, former I&B secretary Asha Swarup, Vikram Kaushik who is a business strategist and brand advisor and part-time member on the Prasar Bharati Board; M P Gupta from the Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi, B K Gairola who is mission director (e-Governance) and Prasar Bharati CEO Jawhar Sircar who was the convener.

  • DD to use Hotbird satellite to reach out to Europe, West Asia and North Africa

    DD to use Hotbird satellite to reach out to Europe, West Asia and North Africa

    NEW DELHI: Doordarshan will now be available on the direct-to-home (DTH) platform in the Free-to-Air (FTA) basic pack in the whole of Europe and Arab countries. This, as DD Freedish gets onboard EUTELSAT’s Hotbird-13 B satellite.

     

    This will help the public broadcaster project India’s viewpoint to the global audience in a cost effective manner. DD will be offered in the basic pack of the DTH service which does not require any individual to either subscribe or pay for viewing the channel.

     

    This has been made possible with the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) between Prasar Bharati CEO Jawhar Sircar and the German public broadcaster Deutsche Welle (DW) head of distribution (Asia) Dorothee Ulrichs.

     

    Speaking on the occasion, Sircar said the MoU provided an important platform to position DD’s content globally. The content for the platform would be created based on the consultation with various stakeholders and the taste of the target audience.

     

    Congratulating Prasar Bharati on the occasion, Culture Secretary Ravindra Singh said the MoU had given an opportunity to project India’s soft power to the world. 

     

    The offer by DW is on extremely favourable terms and DD India does not even require a licence immediately.  The licence can be obtained within a period of one year if the experiment is successful.

     

    Placing DD on Hotbird DTH platform will also give it full access to the Middle Eastern GCC countries, where Indians work and reside in large numbers.

     

    Hotbird-13B is the most chosen satellite by European countries because of its polarity.  It has a reach of 120 million homes in the whole of Europe, Northern Africa and the Middle East. The DTH platform has a total number of 1543 TV channels of which 1117 TV channels are Free-to-Air. 124 English channels are available on this satellite, prominent amongst which are BBC, CNN, CCTV, RT, France24, VOA TV, Euromans, Sky News, Bloomberg TV, Al Jazeera, etc.  

     

    While Independence Day was initially the target date for launch, it is now expected to be put off to either 15 September which marks the date Doordarshan first began telecast in 1959 or Mahatma Gandhi’s birthday on 2 October as that will give sufficient time to plan the appropriate content.

     

    Prasar Bharati CEO Jawhar Sircar said that DD currently has a budget of Rs 2 crore to Rs 3 crore per year, for production of programmes, which has to go up and so other Ministries will need to pool in their resources/content for quality shows for the viewership abroad.

     

    “Programming will be mainly accessed from archival material and current shows, apart from some live and deferred live content,” he added.

     

    Sircar also admitted that DD India was available on Indian satellites to Europe, but this deal would help overcome the hurdle of getting people to see Doordarshan programmes. He said in India, DD Freedish continues to have the largest reach.

     

    He said the programming was mostly in English and Hindi, but subtitling may be used where necessary.

     

    Indian satellites reach around 34 countries, he said.

     

    He said Australian Broadcasting Corporation was expected to come on board DD Freedish within the next few weeks, and France was proposing to beam to India via an Indian satellite.

     

    Asked if the private channels which were beaming on the Freedish platform would also be able to reach Europe, he said DD Freedish had separate beams for public service broadcasters.

     

    Ulriche said there was a possibility that this may lead to co-productions with DD. She denied reports that DW had cut down on its coverage of India. Speaking to indiantelevision.com on the sidelines, Ulriche said DW beamed to the world in four beams: English, German, Arabic and Spanish. Asia was reached through the Asiasat I satellite.

     

    The five broad areas/regions to be covered are Central Asia, Middle East or West Asia, East Europe, West Europe and North Africa. The content would primarily target different cultures, keeping in mind the different languages of the regions like Turki, Persian, Arabic, French etc and English being reasonably the lingua franca.

     

    The shows for the target audiences would be decided in consultation with the concerned Ministries who have experience and expertise in the various fields and assessing the cultural and political sensitivities of the areas. A few private series will continue to be broadcast with their own view point of India. 

     

    Doordarshan has been trying since 1995 to build bridges of communication with Indians living abroad and also trying to showcase its diverse culture, values and rich heritage to the world by launching its first international channel.

     

    Upon the expansion of this  international channel into 24×7 transmission, Doordarshan signed an agreement with Pan Am SAT (later Intelsat) for achieving global footprint of its international channel in Asia, Africa, Europe and North America by placing it on ‘C’ & ‘KU’ band of IS-10 , IS-906 and G-13 satellites.

     

    In 2011, the services provided by Intelsat were dispensed with and the ccontract was terminated.

     

    From March 2011, Doordarshan started availing the service of ISRO’s INSAT-4B in both KU band & C band. However, the inadequacy of not being able to locate any significant global partners to distribute and connect DD to homes overseas continued.

     

    In the past also DD did make efforts to distribute its international channel in various parts of the world but made little progress in the last mile distribution due to policies which did not permit large scale spending on carriage fees.

     

    The pubcaster made renewed efforts through Indian missions to distribute its international channel abroad, but it could make little progress in this last mile distribution, because of several reasons. However, significant local partners could not be located to distribute and connect DD to homes overseas continued. 

     

    Sircar said many stereo type systems need to be broken up and the Public Broadcaster can do better. On the other hand, countries like Japan, Germany, China, Russia, France etc have invested heavily between Rs 4000 crore and Rs 8000 crore to ensure a global reach for its international channels.  

  • ‘Sawaal Dilli Ka’, asks Doordarshan

    ‘Sawaal Dilli Ka’, asks Doordarshan

    NEW DELHI: There might be numerous game shows on the Indian television, but for the first time on any channel, a quiz series focusing on the national capital will commence.

     

    Doordarshan’s cultural channel DD Bharati will test the knowledge of viewers about New Delhi.

     

    ‘Sawaal Dilli Ka’ which will start from 3 August and air every Sunday at 6 pm is based on the culture, people, politics, craft history of the city and many more topics.

     

    The five episode bilingual TV show is the culmination of an entertaining and educational quiz contest conducted by nationally known quizmaster and architect Kunal Savarkar for Delhi Tourism (DTTDC) and INTACH, Delhi Chapter.

     

    The quiz competition was conducted on a variety of interesting format like audio visual rounds, buzzer rounds etc.

     

    The aim of the quiz was to stir the minds of young students and simultaneously, develop a sense of pride for the city of Delhi. 

     

    Over 225 schools in Delhi participated in six different zonal quizzes in January 2014. The quiz was won by Delhi Public School, RK Puram.

     

     

     

     

  • DD awaits Prasar Bharati’s nod for a HD channel

    DD awaits Prasar Bharati’s nod for a HD channel

    NEW DELHI: In the era of high definition, Doordarshan, proved its mettle in telecasting in HD mode as early as 2010.

     

    The pubcaster had then shown the Commonwealth Games held in the national capital in HD feed, even before the other private channels entered the segment.

     

    Doordarshan is ready to launch a national channel in a parallel HD mode, as per the sources within the pubcaster, but is awaiting a nod from the  Prasar Bharati board.

     

    Prasar Bharati sources however told indiantelevision.com that the issue of a separate HD channel had not been put up before the board.

     

    Currently, DD News is telecasting the Commonwealth Games from Glasgow in high definition on its terrestrial transmitters while covering more of the games/events where Indians are participating.

     

    It is learnt that DD Sports and Ten Sports failed to reach an agreement on the issue, and the Ministry had issued a showcause notice to Ten Sports, last week, for declining to share the feed with DD Sports. Under the The Sports Broadcasting Signals (Mandatory Sharing with Prasar Bharati) Act 2007 as it is considered a sports event of national importance, it is mandatory for the rights holder (Ten Sports, in this case) to share the broadcast with Prasar Bharati.

     

    The sports event is mandated to be carried on the terrestrial network to ensure that viewers who do not have access to cable or DTH services can also view the games. 

  • Just over 37 million of the 65 million DTH subscribers active: TRAI

    Just over 37 million of the 65 million DTH subscribers active: TRAI

    NEW DELHI: The six private direct-to-home (DTH) operators were serving a total of 64.82 million registered subscribers at the end of the first quarter of the calendar year 2014.

    However, the number of active subscribers was 37.19 million, according to a report by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI).

    Apart from this, a large number of subscribers are served by Doordarshan’s DTH service.

    A total of 187 satellite television channels were encrypted (pay) out of the total 793 permitted by the Information and Broadcasting Ministry at the end of the first quarter ending March 2014. The number of pay channels is as reported by the broadcasters for which the rates have been taken on record.

    The maximum number of TV channels being carried by any of the reported MSOs was 387 in DAS areas, whereas the maximum number of channels carried is 100 in conventional analogue form.

    Apart from All India Radio, there are 242 private FM Radio stations in operation at the quarter ending March 2014. The status of operationalised private FM Radio stations is listed on the website of the I and B Ministry.

    The total number of internet subscribers has increased from 238.71 million at the end of December 2013 to 251.59 million at the end of March 2014, showing a quarterly growth of 5.4 per cent. Of these, the wired internet subscribers are 18.50 million and wireless internet subscribers are 233.09 million.

    The number of broadband internet subscribers increased from 55.2 million at the end of December 2013 to 60.87 million at the end of March 2014, showing a quarterly growth of 10.28 per cent.

    The number of narrowband internet subscribers increased from 183.51 million at the end of December 2013 to 190.72 million at the end of March 2014 with quarterly growth of 3.93 per cent.

     

  • Inauguration Ceremony – ‘Sahyadri Monsoon Chitrapat Mahotsav’

    Inauguration Ceremony – ‘Sahyadri Monsoon Chitrapat Mahotsav’

    MUMBAI: The Sahyadri Monsoon Marathi Chitrapat Mahotsav got under way at a glittering ceremony on Friday evening with cine stars descending at Doordarshan Mumbai Kendra.

    Inaugurating the festival, which will continue till 20th July, Veteran Actor – Jeetendra, Eminent Theater and Film Personality Vikram Gokhale, Shri Kiran Shantaram, Shri Vijay Kondke – President of the Akhil Bharatiya Chitrapat Mandal assured to extend all assistance to promote regional films in Konkani and Marathi. The festival opened with ‘Badha’, directed by Sumitra Bhave and Shri Sunil Sukhtankar.

    Actor, Jeetendra remembered his mentor and great Film Maker Shri V. Shantaram and appreciated the new Marathi Cinema which is more driven by its culture and literature.

    The Art of Film Making and the inspiration to create good cinema was in deeply discussed by Vikram Gokhale. He asked the students to learn the art of differentiating good cinema and a regular/entertainment cinema.

    Addl.DG – Doordarshan, Shri Mukesh Sharma expressed his view to continue this Chitrapat Mahotsav every year for providing a platform to the young media aspirants.

    More than 500 students participated and enjoyed the interactive sessions with the Film Makers. Director, Sunil Sukhtankar appreciated the unique idea of presenting and discussing their film with the young aspirant who attended the film festival.

    Mukesh Sharma’s views on MMCM

    Marathi Cinema is the oldest and a pioneer film industry in India. The first Marathi movie released in India by Dadasaheb Torne was Shree Pundalik and also the first full –length feature film “Raja Harishchandra” directed by Dadasaheb Phalke was a Marathi film which clearly demarcates the contribution of Marathi Cinema in building the entire film industry.

    In past few years, Marathi cinema industry has produced many films that are not only critically acclaimed but commercially successful as well. It has brought fresh ideas, untouched subjects and deeper human sensitivity on the celluloid.

    With outstanding contribution and efforts from different producers and directors of the Mumbai film industry, Marathi cinema has relatively outshined other Indian film industries in the current scenario.

    In order to promote good cinema the Public Service Broadcaster, Shri Mukesh Sharma –Addl. DG, Doordarshan is leaving no stone unturned in its efforts. The Sahyadri Monsoon Marathi Chitrapat Mahotsav will showcase eight films which have received National Award or have been selected as Indian Panorama and are showcased as the opening films in many International Film Festivals.

    With so much of viewing fragmentation happening in the society because of numerous channel it is not possible for the viewers to consume all the content at one go, keeping this in mind Doordarshan Mumbai decided to screen the Best of Marathi Cinema directly to the viewers without any ad and break’s in the Sahyadri Monsoon Marathi Chitrapat Mahotsav.

    It is surely going to be a feast for the eyes and a bonanza for Cinema Lovers to enjoy these films in the presence of its Director’s/ Cast & Crew who will present their films before and after the screening with the invited audience. All the above interactive sessions between the audience and Director/ Cast & Crew will be recorded continuously for the entire three days by the DDK Mumbai.

    These Award Winning Marathi Films will also be telecast on DD SAHYADRI for television audience and the recorded interactive sessions will be a part of each film.

    The icing on the cake will be the presence of Veteran Actors like Jeetendra Kapoor, Vikram Gokhale and Shri Kiran Shantaram to inaugurate this festival.

  • Government departments owe around Rs 80 crore to Doordarshan for advertisements

    Government departments owe around Rs 80 crore to Doordarshan for advertisements

    NEW DELHI: Public broadcaster Doordarshan has reported a revenue of Rs 1295.86 crore in 2013-14 from advertisements. Information and Broadcasting Minister Prakash Javadekar has said that the revenue in the current year till 31 May was Rs 87.76 crore.

     

    He told Parliament today that the advertisement revenue in 2012-13 was Rs 1298.16 crore, as against Rs 1100.27 crore in 2011-12.

     

    The Minister also clarified that there was no proposal to put any restriction on carrying government ads on the public broadcaster, even as he said various central and state government departments and public sector undertakings owe huge sums to Doordarshan.

     

    Javadekar said that various central and state government departments and PSUs owed Rs 79,66,30,752 as on 31 May this year to the pubcaster.

     

    The Directorate of Advertising and Visual Publicity, a media unit of the Ministry, owes an amount of Rs 6,94,91,429 to Doordarshan.

     

    He said this pertains to the advertisements released in the last quarter of 2013-14. However, Javadekar also said, “It is a normal process of bill settlement.”

  • Govt admits Pakistan TV signals available in border areas

    Govt admits Pakistan TV signals available in border areas

    NEW DELHI: Even as the government has been claiming for several years that it is giving priority to strengthen its communication towers on the borders to strengthen its signals, the Home Ministry and Prasar Bharati have admitted that the signals/coverage of Pakistan TV is available in the bordering districts of the country.

     

    However, Information and Broadcasting Minister Prakash Javadekar told Parliament that ‘no complaints have been received during the last three years regarding telecast of Pakistan TV in the bordering districts of the country.’

     

    He said strengthening of TV coverage of Doordarshan to counter the anti-India propaganda along border areas is an ongoing process. Doordarshan has been assigning priority for expansion of its coverage in the border areas of the country in various expansion plans formulated from time to time. Special packages for expansion and improvement of Doordarshan services in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) have also been implemented in the past.

     

    At present, Prasar Bharati has informed that 112 TV transmitters of varying power are functioning in the districts near the Pakistan border.

    Javadekar said that to further strengthen TV coverage in J&K, a scheme was approved in the 11th Plan which includes projects of establishment of five high power TV transmitters in J&K (Kashmir region- 1; Jammu region-1; Ladakh region-1 besides 2 high power transmitters at Rajouri).

     

    These projects are expected to be completed in phases, in about two years, he added. 

     

    Meanwhile, DD sources told indiantelevision.com that all areas uncovered by terrestrial transmitters in border areas along with the rest of the country have been provided with multichannel television coverage through Doordarshan’s free-to-air direct-to-home platform Free Dish which can be received anywhere in the country with small sized dish receiver units.

     

    However, All India Radio and DD terrestrial coverage in the border areas in Jammu and Kashmir is being strengthened with an outlay of Rs 1 billion in the 11th Plan.

      

    A total of 273 TV transmitters of varying power are presently functioning in the border areas all over the country, DD sources told indiantelevision.com