ITV

Tag: Prasar Bharati

  • DD Kashir sees 50% increase in viewership from J&K between 5-16 August

    DD Kashir sees 50% increase in viewership from J&K between 5-16 August

    MUMBAI: After the abrogation of article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir, there have been speculations all over the media about communication blackout in the valley. Commenting on the issue, Prasar Bharati CEO Shashi Shekhar Vempati said between 5 to 16 August, Kashmir’s TV channel DD Kashir saw 50 per cent increase in viewership from the Jammu and Kashmir region citing BARC data.

    “Contrary to narratives carried by certain sections of foreign media on information blackout, viewership data released by BARC India reveals that between 5 Aug & 16 August DD Kashir saw a 50 per cent increase in viewership from J&K region and a 60 per cent increase from all over India,” Vempati tweeted.

    Vempati also added that during the same period other prominent news channels also saw a viewership spike from the Jammu and Kashmir region as high as 30-80 per cent. Recently, the central government announced the decision of scraping the special constitutional provision of Article 370 that governed the relationship between India and the state of Jammu and Kashmir.

  • Prasar Bharati board approves restructuring of Doordarshan to separate creative functions

    Prasar Bharati board approves restructuring of Doordarshan to separate creative functions

    MUMBAI: Prasar Bharati board has approved restructuring of Doordarshan to separate its creative functions into a dedicated vertical for handling content operations. The board has authorised the search and selection committee headed by Prasar Bharati chairman A Surya Prakash to select suitable professionals for the roles of chief content officer and channel heads on a contract basis.

    The board desired that suitable professionals may be identified with 15-20 years or more of experience in broadcasting with specialisation in news /culture /arts / entertainment/ Sports and other genres of relevance to public broadcasting having held leadership roles over the last five years, preferably at a large network with responsibility for one or more channels with a nationwide viewership footprint. The board also indicated that identified professionals must be tuned into the goals and responsibilities of the Public Broadcaster as mandated by parliament.

    While the chief content officer will be responsible for the content/ creative functions and operations across the Doordarshan network (National and regional channels) in line with the objectives of Prasar Bharati, the channel heads are expected to manage individual channels in line with the content and channel strategy. With this restructuring Prasar Bharati intends to induce professionalism into its content and creative functions in line with state of the art trends, production values and industry best practices.

  • DD Free Dish fills up 3 vacant MPEG-2 slots

    DD Free Dish fills up 3 vacant MPEG-2 slots

    MUMBAI: Public service broadcaster Prasar Bharati has allotted vacant slots to three channels on its direct-to-home (DTH) platform DD Free Dish in the 41st e-auction. According to media reports, the pubcaster has garnered Rs 21.69 crore in the latest round of e-auction.

    Hindi GEC Manoranjan Grand, Hindi movie channels Zingaat and Skystar Telugu have been allotted MPEG-2 slots for the period from 16 August 2019 to 29 February 2020. Manoranjan Grand, the new free to air (FTA) Hindi GEC will launch on 15 August while the test signal of the channel is already on.

    The Prasar Bharati board gave a green signal to e-auctioning of DTH slots on DD Free Dish in January. The e-auctioning was arbitrarily called off in October 2017. Earlier, FreeDish would conduct the e-auction every couple of months to award vacant channel slots to private broadcasters. The last e-auction was held in July 2017.

  • Doordarshan to hire creative head; installs video walls for Rs 10.75 cr

    Doordarshan to hire creative head; installs video walls for Rs 10.75 cr

    MUMBAI: Information and Broadcasting Minister Prakash Javadekar inaugurated Video Walls in all eight Doordarshan Studios and Earth Station at DD Kendra, Delhi on Thursday.

    Speaking on the occasion,  Javadekar highlighted the significance of the video walls in enhancing viewer experience. He said that under the three year Action Plan of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, support has been given to Doordarshan to modernise its infrastructure.  Addition of state of art video walls and spectrum efficient satellite equipment, is a step in the direction of revamping the Public Service Broadcaster.

    Appreciating the role of Doordarshan, he stated that the channel is synonymous with credibility. He asked the officials present to work towards expanding the spread of DD Free Dish from the current 3.25 crore households to 5 crore households. On this occasion, he also announced that a creative head will soon be brought in for DD to give a further boost to programming and high quality content creation.

    Ministry of Information and Broadcasting secretary Amit Khare said that the government is committed to support Doordarshan and All India Radio in every possible way to ensure that the public service broadcaster is able to provide services of contemporary industry standards, reaching out to every nook and corner of India.

    Prasar Bharati chairman A Surya Prakash lauded the efforts of Doordarshan and highlighted that in the recent past a number of impactful and meaningful programmes have been created, which have taken the flagship schemes of the government to the door steps of people.

    The state-of-art video walls, installed at a cost of Rs 10.75 crore under the three year Action Plan of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, are at par with those in studio centres of leading international broadcasters. The induction of video walls will save a lot of time in physical erection of sets. Further, it will give greater flexibility through dynamic change of  backdrop by introducing live/recorded videos, graphics etc. in studio sets as per program requirement.

    The Earth Station, which is based on spectrum efficient technology, will result in increasing capacity to almost double the number of channels in the same bandwidth. The new Earth Station is HD capable and can give all the national channels of DD in HD. This state of art Earth Station will enable DD to save cost on teleport of DD channels and also allow inclusion of new channels in DD bouquet.

    The satellite uplink facility of 9 channels of DDK Delhi, also called as Earth Station was commissioned in 2007. The technology available those days was not spectrum efficient and the compression technique used earlier was MPEG-2 in DVB-S format which resulted in spectrum utilisation of approx. 4 MHz per channel.

    In order to replace the old outdated and obsolete equipment and also save precious spectrum, the compression chain of the Earth Station is now replaced with state of art new equipment which uses MPEG-4 compression and DVBS-2 standards resulting into reducing bandwidth requirement per channel to half i.e. 2 MHz per channel.This spectrum efficient technology will result in increasing capacity of the Earth Station to almost double the number of channels in the same bandwidth.

  • Dish TV vs Prasar Bharati: DD Free Dish cannot use word ‘Dish’, says Delhi High Court

    Dish TV vs Prasar Bharati: DD Free Dish cannot use word ‘Dish’, says Delhi High Court

    MUMBAI: The Delhi High Court on Tuesday granted an injunction to direct-to-home (DTH) operator Dish TV (plaintiff) against Prasar Bharati (defendant), preventing the public broadcaster from using the word 'Dish' for its free-to-air DTH platform DD Free Dish. The defendant was handed three months’ time to inform its subscribers of the new name, so as to not cause any confusion.

    Terming it as prima facie case of infringement, the single bench of Justice Sahay Endlaw refused to accept the pubcaster’s claim of publici juris.

    The plaintiff had instituted this suit for permanent injunction restraining the defendant from infringing the trade mark “Dish TV‟ of the plaintiff and from passing off the defendant’s services as that of the plaintiff by adoption of the name/mark “Free Dish‟ and for ancillary reliefs.

    The plaintiff had argued that the world ‘Dish’ was first appropriated by them and is a key component of its trademark. The defended opted for a logo similar in nature, even containing the dish that was a central to the Dish TV logo.

    The defendant refuted the charge of similarities in the logo and argued that the exclusive right to the Dish logo cannot be claimed by anyone.

    The court was not in agreement with the defendant’s argument of the word “Dish‟ being generic to DTH service or publici juris and/or common to the trade of DTH service for it to be said that adoption thereof by plaintiff for its DTH services cannot prevent others providing same service from using the same for the reason of its being essential for them for describing their service.

    “As far as the contention of the counsel for the defendant regarding public interest is concerned, it cannot be lost sight of that the defendant, after ten years changed the name of its service from DD Direct+ to DD Free Dish. It is not the case of the defendant that in doing so, any such consequence followed. The defendant has also not disclosed the need for such change. There is no reason for the defendant to now, upon being asked to make the change instead of affecting the same voluntarily, suspect any such harm to the public. Moreover, the said aspect can be taken care of by providing sufficient time to the defendant to make its customers / subscribers aware of the change including on its own telecast,” the order read.

    “Rather, I am dismayed that the defendant, a public sector enterprise, indulged in using another’s trade mark and in spite of the plaintiff objecting thereto, refused to act reasonably. The same is not expected of a public sector enterprise which according to the proclaimed litigation policy of the government is not to be indulged in. It is at least now expected that the officials responsible for conduct of the business of the defendant will bestow attention thereto and take a call, whether it is worthwhile to contest this litigation, obviously at the cost of the exchequer,” Justice Sahay Endlaw further stated.

  • Doordarshan’s future roadmap hinges on new tech, content development & monetisation

    Doordarshan’s future roadmap hinges on new tech, content development & monetisation

    MUMBAI: Public broadcaster Prasar Bharati is waking up from its slumber. With technology redesigning the media industry, the pubcaster has to quickly adapt to upgradations like ultra-high definition (UHD) along with focusing on over-the-top reach and tapping the huge digital base.

    Several recommendations to boost DD were discussed in the first ever India International Broadcast Conclave 2019 held at Hyderabad in March under the aegis of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB). Experts across the media value chain shared their insights for further growth of DD and the industry.

    One of the important recommendations was the participation of DD and AIR in international forums like MIPCOM and other international festivals.  While PB has a huge repository of archival content, monetisation of this asset is the need of the hour. Along with helping in revenue augmentation, it would also ensure a wider reach of rich content to enthusiasts.

    DD also needs to quickly adopt HD and UHD technologies for better picture quality. It has also been suggested that DD should prepare a roadmap for moving towards HD completely. On the other hand, DD needs to tap the huge digital base of consumers nationally as well as globally and take necessary steps for digitising of content and infrastructure. While all the traditional broadcasters are taking the over-the-top (OTT) road, DD can either create its own platform or collaborate with third parties in a revenue sharing agreement.

    Technology is not only important for distribution but also needs to be implemented as a part of overall programming such as augmented reality and virtual reality (AR and VR) in order to innovate and present content tactically. The need to have a separate cell in DD for data analytics for better insights on content has been allowed.

    “DD needs to adopt a professional outsourcing model for content development and acquisition in view of a large number of vacancies of production staff and ageing manpower. DD needs to revamp its tariff rates, put in place a robust sales and marketing teams and monetisation of content to stay ahead in the competition,” the report read.

    To make the changes smoother, there should be a focus also on capacity-building initiatives. At the time of rapid changes, a well-designed skill upgradation programme is the need of the hour. Moreover, collaboration with private agencies to provide training on contemporary skills in areas covering the entire value chain has been suggested. 

    “Commercial activity of broadcast to be efficient to pay for the public service activity. Onus is to be self-sustaining so that it can sustain the organisation. DD Freedish is a good example of public service mandate and achieving commercial sustainability,” PB CEO Shashi Shekhar Vempati highlighted in his ‘Master Class’.

  • PILs filed against restriction of sharing sports feed of “national importance” with DD platforms

    PILs filed against restriction of sharing sports feed of “national importance” with DD platforms

    MUMBAI: Two separate petitions filed over a rule relating to the broadcasting of sports feeds by DD channels will be heard soon in the high courts of Delhi, and Punjab & Haryana. While the media rights holders of sporting events with “national importance” are bound to share the live feeds with public broadcaster Prasar Bharati, the rule restricts the telecast of such matches only on the terrestrial network and DTH operator of the pubcaster.

    According to a report from Economic Times, the petitioners are of the view that restricting the live telecast to the terrestrial and DTH networks of Prasar Bharati defeated the purpose of Section 3 (1) of the Sports Broadcasting Signals Act related to mandatory sharing with the pubcaster. Ahead of the ICC Cricket World Cup, the PILs have been filed seeking direction on allowing Prasar Bharati to live telecast the matches on its channels available on private cable and DTH platforms.

    Vaibhav Jain and Ramesh Kumar filed the PILs in the Delhi High Court and in the Punjab & Haryana HC respectively. Both high courts have posted the matter for hearing in late July while the World Cup will end before that on 14 July.

    The Supreme Court imposed restrictions on such retransmission back in August 2017. The report quoted a legal expert saying he doesn’t expect the high courts to give any interim relief to the petitioners in light of the Supreme Court judgement. But given that these are PILs, there are chances of spending some time to look for merits.

    Earlier, Supreme Court clarified in its order that sharing of signals with Prasar Bharati was aimed at giving access to consumers who otherwise did not have access rather than reaching consumers who have already subscribed to private cable and DTH networks.

  • DD Free Dish to air Bangladesh’s BTV World, South Korea’s KBS World

    DD Free Dish to air Bangladesh’s BTV World, South Korea’s KBS World

    MUMBAI: In a big boost to India-Bangladesh cooperation, the Government of India has decided to show BTV World, a channel owned by Bangladesh TV, on the Doordarshan Free Dish.

    At the same time, DD India would be made available in Bangladesh for being viewed by the people in that country.

    This arrangement is as a result of an MoU signed between Prasar Bharati and Bangladesh TV (BTV) on 7 May 2019. The channel – BTV World would be of special interest to the viewers of Eastern India.

    The decision marks an important watershed in the strengthening of ties between the two countries and follows an earlier decision taken by the two Governments to co-produce a film on Banga Bandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, which will be directed by the eminent film director-producer Shyam Benegal.

    The Government has also approved the proposal of Prasar Bharati for making available the KBS World, an English 24×7 channel of Government of Republic of South Korea on the DD Free Dish for the Indian viewers.

    Simultaneously, people of Korea would be able to view DD India in their country.

  • How Doordarshan aims to fill void of GECs’ exit from Free Dish, FTA space

    How Doordarshan aims to fill void of GECs’ exit from Free Dish, FTA space

    MUMBAI: Public broadcaster Prasar Bharati, during its 154th board meeting, gave Doordarshan a major shot in the arm as it approved, in principle, significant investment in new and quality content during the year 2019-2020. The meeting was chaired by Prasar Bharati chairman A. Surya Prakash in the presence of the CEO Shashi Shekhar Vempati and member Rajeev Singh.

    According to Vempati, the plan for new content on Doordarshan will be finalized in the next few days. This infusion of fresh content by Doordarshan should fill the vacuum from the exit of several GEC channels from the free-to-air (FTA) space in general and from DD Free Dish in particular, Vempati hopes.

    While BARC India has not been making its viewership data public in recent weeks, the importance of DD Free Dish as a platform has become abundantly clear going by the measurement since 1 March. This underscores the opportunity for Doordarshan to regain its space in GEC genre, Vempati added.

    Post the implementation of TRAI tariff order, several major broadcasters like ZEE and Star India have converted their FTA channels into pay and taken off popular channels from Doordarshan's FTA DTH platform Free Dish.

    The planned investment in new content on Doordarshan will be targeted towards capturing this opportunity, Vempati stated.

  • Applications for DD Free Dish Bucket R1 MPEG-2 slots invited by Prasar Bharati

    Applications for DD Free Dish Bucket R1 MPEG-2 slots invited by Prasar Bharati

    MUMBAI: Prasar Bharati has invited applications to fill up reserved Bucket R1 MPEG-2 slots of DD Free Dish DTH Platform on pro-rata basis for the period from 15 April to 31 May in accordance with amendment to Policy Guidelines  of slots of DD Free Dish, notified on March 30 2019.

    Only devotional/spiritual satellite channels, including channels promoting yoga, ayurveda, health and wellness based on traditional methods, licensed by the Ministry of I&B and categorized as Bucket R1 as per the amendment to policy guidelines for allotment of slots on DD Free Dish Direct to home satellite platform, notified by Prasar Bharati on 30.3.2019, are eligible to apply for allocation of these slots on pro-rata basis.

    The interim reserve/base price of Bucket R1 for allotment of slots on DD Free Dish on pro-rata basis is Rs 3.00 crore per year. Hence, the pro-rata carriage fee for the period from 15.04.2019 to 31.05.2019 will be Rs. 45,58,356/- (Rupees forty five lakhs fifty eight thousand three hundred fifty six only) inclusive of GST @18%.

    Broadcasters desirous of placing their Channels on DD Free Dish shall be required to declare genre and language of their channel while applying for pro-rata allocation.

    E-auction, if required, will be held on 12.04.2019.