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Tag: Prasar Bharti

  • Prasar Bharti CEO Jawhar Sircar to attend KLF’s inaugural ceremony

    Prasar Bharti CEO Jawhar Sircar to attend KLF’s inaugural ceremony

    KOLKATA: Publishers and Book Sellers Guild announced the second edition of Kolkata Literature Festival (KLF) through a press conference in Kolkata. 

     

    President of Publishers and Book Sellers Guild Tridib Chatterjee said that Prasar Bharti CEO Jawhar Sircar along with renowned actor Soumitra Chatterjee and author Shobha De will join the inaugural ceremony of KLF on 6 February.

     

    KLF will be held from 6 – 8 February at the KLF Auditorium (SBI Auditorium) inside the Milan Mela premises, where the International Kolkata Book Fair, one of the largest book fair in terms of footfall, has already begun from 28 January.

     

    “Prasar Bharti CEO Jawhar Sircar will be present at the inaugural ceremony. Nobel laureate economist Amartya Sen will be present on the closing day of the KLF,” Chatterjee informed.

     

    Bookworms and bibliophiles are expected to bask in the winter sun and meet literary writers.

     

    Renowned dancer Alokananda Roy is likely to showcase a dance performance on Tagore’s songs and on the life of Jesus Christ.

     

    Roy said that the prisoners from Dumdum correctional home, Presidency jail, Alipore women’s correctional home and Medinipore jail are also likely to perform in her dance programme.

  • Russia and India agree for exchange of films, public broadcasters’ interaction between countries

    Russia and India agree for exchange of films, public broadcasters’ interaction between countries

    NEW DELHI: Russia has agreed to provide assistance in the development of direct ties and contacts between the Prasar Bharati and the All Russian State Television and Radio Company.

     
    India will also hold a Festival of India in Russia during 2015, according to an agreement between a visiting team from Russia.

     
    India and Russia have expressed their keenness for cultural exchanges/cooperation in the fields of exhibitions, libraries, visits of crafts persons, visit of writers’ delegation, contemporary and visual arts, archives, theatre art, contemporary visual art etc.

     
    Both countries will renew the Cultural Exchange Programme for 2015 to 2018, according to a decision taken by the 20th meeting of the India-Russia Working Group on Culture and Tourism of India-Russia Inter-Governmental Commission on trade, economic, scientific, technical and cultural cooperation held here today.  
     The two sides agreed to exchange film related events, and reciprocal participation in the International Film Festivals to be held in both countries in accordance with their respective regulations.

    The meeting was chaired by Culture Joint Secretary V Srinivas. Apart from Culture Ministry, the others from the Indian side comprised of representatives of Tourism, External Affairs, Information and Broadcasting Ministries. From the Russian side, Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation Deputy Minister Elena Milovzorova headed the five member delegation.

     
    The meeting is alternatively held in India and Russia every year under the provisions laid down in the Russian-India Inter-Governmental Commission on Trade and Economic, Scientific and Technical and Cultural Cooperation.

    Both sides expressed satisfaction on the successful implementation of the Protocol of the 19th meeting of the Programme of Cultural Exchange between the two Governments for the years 2013-15.

  • Meeting of expert committee on WIPO early next month

    Meeting of expert committee on WIPO early next month

    NEW DELHI: The first meeting of the expert committee constituted earlier this year for the protection of broadcasting organisation at the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) will be held on 2 September.

     

    The aim is to discuss with members from broadcasting organisations and broadcasters to examine and articulate the stand being taken by India.

     

    The meeting will discuss the text of the broadcasting treaty and proposals submitted by India during the 26th SCCR; discussion on the informal proposal submitted by Japan; discussion on the proposal submitted by European Union and discussion on the formats circulated by WlPO secretariat. 

     

    The members of the committee include representatives of all the concerned Ministries, representatives of the News Broadcasters Association and Indian Broadcasting Foundation, the radio industry, the film industry, Prasar Bharati, Amit Shukla who is Director (Copyright) in the Registrar of Copyrights (copyright division) of the Department of Higher Education; BECIL; the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI); Centre for Media Studies (CMS); Community Radio Forum; Community Radio Association; Association of Regional Television Broadcasters of India; School of Legal Studies in Cochin; Cine & TV Artistes Association; the Film Federation of India; the Indian Music Industry and the Film & TV producers Guild of India.

  • DD offers free signals of sign language interpretation for I-Day celebrations

    DD offers free signals of sign language interpretation for I-Day celebrations

    NEW DELHI: To enable the hearing impaired so that they can savour the spirit of Independence Day, Doordarshan will make available free of cost the signals of the coverage of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s address to the nation after the flag hoisting of the tricolour along with the sign language interpretation.

     

    The Information and Broadcasting ministry said all news television channels interested in carrying the live telecast of the ceremony commentary are advised to carry the signals of DD News with sign language interpretation.

     

     The Ministry said that this was being done in view of requests received from members of the civil society.

     

     Prasar Bharati has informed the ministry that DD news channel would be carrying the sign language interpretation and private satellite TV channels can avail the same from them.

  • DD National tops in ‘time spent in viewing’ numbers

    DD National tops in ‘time spent in viewing’ numbers

    NEW DELHI: DD National is the number one channel among all GEC’s in terms of time spent by viewers and the TAM data for week 26 from 22-28 July 2014 indicates that it topped with 92 minutes TSV as compared to 90 minutes as recorded for Sony.

     

    The higher numbers indicate that after switching to the channel, viewers have preferred to continuously watch the channel rather than frequently switching to other channels.

     

    DD National is also reported to be ranked three in terms of overall average viewership in early morning time band of 6 am to 8 am. The viewership of DD National channel is rising rapidly during mid prime time band from 12 pm to 3 pm as it has slotted six new family based fresh serials during this band and renamed this band as DD Dopahar.

     

    However, an analysis done by Doordarshan itself indicates that the viewership of the channel can be higher if multi-system operators fully comply with the Cable TV Networks (Regulation) Act 1995 as many are still not complying with the ‘Must Carry’ clause and the carriage of the national channel is still badly affected in analogue cable networks.

     

    Thus, DD National channel is regaining its lost ground as it has also seen rapid growth in overall viewership numbers in prime time and morning prime time of Sunday.

     

    Its environment based programme Earth Matters directed by the renowned Mike Pandey is becoming popular among all sections of society, indicating that the channel is liked by viewers for wholesome entertainment and information based programmes and for lot of fresh programming dished out to viewers unlike other channels who are most dependent on repeat programmes and are run on six to eight hours cycle.

  • “Cuts in Modi interview on DD made internally”

    “Cuts in Modi interview on DD made internally”

    NEW DELHI: The Information and Broadcasting ministry has denied any knowledge of the fate of the interview conducted by Doordarshan of Bharatiya Janata Party prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi on the public broadcaster.

     

     

    I& B secretary Bimal Julka told indiantelevision.com that the matter was not raised before the ministry and therefore, there was no question of any cuts or changes to the interview conducted by DD.

     

     

    He said the ministry was not aware of the letter reported to have been written by Prasar Bharati CEO Jawhar Sircar to board members where he is reported to have written that failure to give autonomy to the public broadcaster was the main reason for this.

     

     

    In a letter to the board members, Sircar accepted that certain portions of the interview on DD were ‘apparently edited’. He wrote that he had received a large number of queries about this and blamed the entire episode on the ministry, saying the government can interfere in the form of transfer, appointment and punitive action against Prasar Bharati officials.

     

     

    DD News director general also told imdiantelevision.com that the decision to delete certain portions was taken internally and there was no interaction with the ministry in this regard. In fact, he said the ministry was not even aware of the interview until it was telecast.

     

     

    Sircar said in the letter: “It appears that while portions critical of Doordarshan were telecast, certain comments on other personalities were apparently edited in the Modi interview telecast on 27 April,” he said.

     

     

    He wrote that the board has taken several resolutions in the last two years, seeking more operational autonomy from the ministry, but without success. “In a way, therefore, the MIB lost the opportunity to convince a young minister (Manish Tewari) to break this long traditional linkage between the ministry and the News Division, which has continued unabated since PB was born and assigned its distinct role in 1997.”

     

     

    Sircar noted that after the DD team got the interview with Modi, there were concerns that they had not yet managed a counter-interview with Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi. “I gave DG News the strength to go ahead and telecast the interview, even though there were concerns that a balancing interview from the other side could not be procured, despite best attempts of DD News,” Sircar said.

     

     

    He said, “Another pertinent initiative of the PB Board to bring in external professionals met with some degree of success, but where the post of the director general of Doordarshan and AIR are concerned, it did not succeed.” 

     

     

    “The Recruitment Rules still ensure that only government and quasi-government persons can occupy the post, which is pegged at approximately Rs 22 lakh per annum against sharply higher market rates. I have tried my best to explain that these need to be reviewed because times are changing, but I have not succeeded. If there had been some degree of fresh thinking in these two proposals, we may not have faced the type of public criticism that a single interview has invited,” he added.

     

     

    Doordarshan had reportedly edited out some parts out of Modi’s interview where he had referred to Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and to Congress President Sonia Gandhi’s Political Advisor Ahmed Patel.

  • Broad categorisation of FM radio in India; Industry has seen double digit growth

    Broad categorisation of FM radio in India; Industry has seen double digit growth

    BENGALURU:  The FICCI-KPMG Media and Entertainment Report 2014 (M&E-2014 Report) says that the private FM radio industry comprises network players (national, regional and metro-focused), single stations and some niche players. A broad categorisation of the FM radio industry is Private FM radio companies and Public sector companies.

     

    The eco-system

     

    Prasar Bharti operates All India Radio (‘AIR’), India’s public sector radio service. AIR’s home service comprises 406 stations across the country, reaching nearly 92 per cent of the country’s area and 99.19 percent of the total population. AIR originates programming in 23 languages and 146 dialects.

     

    At present, AIR operates 18 FM stereo radio channels, called AIR FM Rainbow, targeting the urban audiences. Four more FM radio channels called, AIR FM Gold, broadcast composite news and entertainment programmes from Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai and Mumbai. With FM popular across the country, AIR is augmenting its Medium Wave transmission with additional FM transmitters at Regional stations.

     

    As mentioned above, private sector companies can be further classified into companies that have an all India presence; companies that have a metro focus; companies that are non-metro focused; niche radio stations.

     

    Some of the major private FM players in each of the categories are:

     

    Red FM with 47 radio stations in the country is the biggest FM radio player closely followed by the Reliance ADAG group’s Big FM that has 45 radio stations. The Times group affiliate Radio Mirchi with 32 radio stations and Radio City with 20 radio stations are amongst the biggest radio operators in terms of number of radio stations in the country says the report.

     

    Oye FM with 7 metro stations, Digital Radio with three stations and Fever with four stations are among the metro focused private FM radio stations in the country.

     

    The non-metro focused players in the country are My FM with 17 stations; Dhamal with 10 stations; CCL radio with nine; Radio Mantra with eight stations; Hello FM with seven stations; Club FM and Radio OOOLALA with four stations each.

     

    Radio Tadka and Radio Mango with four stations each and Nine FM, Radio Indigo and Radio Choklate with two stations each are among the niche radio stations in India.

     

    An industry that has seen double digit growth rate

     

    The report further says the overall revenues of listed radio players exhibited double-digit growth rate over the previous year, approximately 12-14 per cent. This growth was driven equally by volume enhancements in tier II and tier III cities and increase in ad effective rates (‘ER’). The industry managed to keep the Compounded Annual Growth Rate (‘CAGR’) steady in 2013 with smaller players turning profitable during the year as their networks matured. Categories like real estate, FMCG, government, retail and media and entertainment increased their spend on radio.

     

    The report further says that one witnessed a change of attitude towards radio – FM radio is no longer seen as an add-on medium; today, it is an integral part of a media plan and sometimes, campaigns are planned around it. The innovations in radio advertising along with growth of the industry and the positive vibe surrounding it have made sure that advertisers can no longer afford to take the industry lightly.

     

    The report adds that revenue growth in FM radio is expected to be driven by:

     

    Launch of stations and increase in their popularity across more tier II and tier III cities, which enables radio companies to provide advertisers with a bouquet of channels that can support brand launches across states or regions as a substitute for print or regional TV

     

    Growth in advertising ER on radio

     

    Expected regulatory reforms are likely to improve profitability and stimulate foreign investment.

     

    Implementation of an accurate nationwide measurement mechanism including allowing multiple station ownership in a single city and content networking will increase returns across FM stations.

  • VAM Hussain to continue in Prasar Bharati as Principal Advisor

    VAM Hussain to continue in Prasar Bharati as Principal Advisor

    NEW DELHI: Brig (Retd) V.A.M. Hussain, until now Member (Personnel) in Prasar Bharati, has been designated Principal Advisor (Personnel and Administration) at Prasar Bharti.

    Hussain’s tenure as Member (Personnel) came to an end today.

    His continuance as Principal Advisor was unanimously decided at a meeting of the Prasar Board this morning.

  • DD, Prasar Bharati sign MoU with Korea’s Arirang TV

    DD, Prasar Bharati sign MoU with Korea’s Arirang TV

    MUMBAI: In September 2012, when Prasar Bharati CEO Jawhar Sircar led the Indian delegation to the General Assembly of the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union at Seoul, he called on the then President of  Korea and other dignitaries. Since then the Korean Broadcasting System and Prasar Bharati have on-going partnerships.

     

    However, a new partnership was sought to be made between the Korean International Broadcasting Foundation, Arirang TV and Doordarshan for which Sircar and CEO of Arirang TV Jie-Ae Sohn renewed correspondence recently in November, 2013.

     

    And now the two stations have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) which will allows them to share content. The CEOs from the two stations met in New Delhi on Friday and agreed to an exchange that will foster cultural ties between Korea and India.

     

    The Korean Minister expressed hope for a deeper cultural understanding between India and South Korea. One of the officials was quoted as saying on the Arirang News website, “Through this exchange of broadcasting and broadcasters, we can jumpstart this cultural exchange between two very strong culturally rich countries.”

     

    The deal took shape when ministers from both the countries were meeting to sign an MoU on Mutual Recognition of Digital Signature Certificates for Efficient E-Governance/Cross Border Trade Facilitation. Minister for Communications and Information Technology, India Kapil Sibal and Minister for Science, ICT and Future Planning, Republic of Korea Mun-kee Choi were present there.

     

    Under the agreement, Arirang and Doordarshan aim to make their global channels available on satellite platforms in both nations by 2014. Both parties will even explore co-production opportunities related to matters of mutual interest and share TV programmes in the cultural, educational, scientific, agricultural, entertainment, sports, news and any other possible fields. The MoU will be valid for a period of three years from the date of signature and will be automatically renewed for every following three years, unless terminated by either party by giving a written notice of three months.

    Interestingly, as the MoU was being signed, a documentary produced by Arirang TV was being aired on Doordarshan throughout India. The documentary explains the vision for the “creative economy” that President Park Geun-hye has advocated since the very beginning of her term last February.

     

     

  • The Year of Rapid Change

    The Year of Rapid Change

    By Ranjan Thakur

    The year 2013 witnessed a large number of activities in Prasar Bharati and Doordarshan.  A major achievement of Doordarshan was in rebranding its Free-to-Air DTH services as ‘DD Freedish’ which highlights its USP of being Free-to-Air.  Earlier, the name DD Direct Plus did not catch on because the rural audience could not connect with the name.  The name ‘DD Freedish’ now adequately conveys the USP of the product and the DTH service which is quite popular and far ahead of its paid rivals, is likely to increase its popularity further.

    The project of commissioning of enhanced capacity to 120 channels up from the present 59 channels is likely to be completed by March, 2014 and will substantially enhance the popularity of the product.  It is expected that given the background of the ongoing digitisation process in the country, a large number of cable users will shift to the DD’s Freedish in 2014 especially during the Phase III and Phase IV of the digitisation process when it will start touching the semi-urban and rural viewers.

     A matter of great satisfaction for Doordarshan has been the successful auction of the channel slots for the private channels on the DD’s Freedish platform.  A series of steps, including staggering of the auction process, enhanced the revenue of DD by nearly 40 per cent from the previous rounds of auction.  Presently, the platform is commanding an annual carriage fee of Rs 6 crore per channel due to its large reach.

    DD looks forward to the conclusion of the process of launching its international channel, DD India in the territory of Europe.  DD has received a very lucrative offer from one of the major operators in Europe for placement of DD India w.e.f. January, 2014, which is likely to be accepted with the approval of the Prasar Bharati Board soon.  DD India has already been launched in Canada and will be launched in the territories of Korea, Middle East and Central Asia in Early 2014. 

    The availability of DD India over the entire Europe including northern parts of Africa will substantially enhance the popularity of DD India globally.  As the stakeholders are aware that a global channel requires substantial investment, DD proposes to expand the global footprint of DD India in a phased manner after analysing the experience in Europe, Korea, Canada and Central Asia.

    Doordarshan is in the process of finalising its FPC for the expansion of its international channel which will be a mix of news and general entertainment.

    Doordarshan also successfully upgraded the four regional channels of Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan during 2013.  These channels were working in four hour terrestrial mode only while substantial investment in infrastructure, equipment and manpower had already been made.  In order to effectively utilise the investment made in these locations, a decision to upgrade these channels to 24 hour cable and satellite channel was taken and implemented within a period three months without any major investment. 

    The current TAM data indicates that while DD-Bihar and DD-Uttar Pradesh are already No 1, DD- Madhya Pradesh is No 2 while DD-Rajasthan is No 3, in their respective states in terms of popularity.  The upgradation of these four state channels is a major step forward to tap the regional television market.  DD now proposes to move on to upgradation of DD-Jharkhand, DD-Uttarakhand, DD-Chattisgarh and DD- Himachal Pradesh on the same pattern of the four channels.  It was our experience that the viewership of terrestrial channels was adversely affected in cable and satellite territories which needed to be addressed.  Given the success of the four regional channels upgradation, Doordarshan is confident that this process will be completed shortly and these channels are likely to be quite popular in their territory.

    We (at DD) expect the next year to be an exciting year when a number of these initiatives will start yielding results for DD with substantial enhancement of revenue besides sourcing of quality software.

    DD has enhanced its role in the industry’s body namely Indian Broadcasting Federation and has a place on the Board of Directors after quite some years.  DD expects to play its rightful role being the only public broadcaster in the country and share its experiences while lending its strength to the industry body.

    DD is on the Board of Directors of the Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC), an initiative of the industry to develop alternative TV ratings.  DD has substantially increased its role in BARC and as the industry is aware, an alternate television rating system based on the audio watermarking technology is likely to be initiated by June, 2014.

    Doordarshan has set up a professional Audience Research Unit to analyse the available data related to the television rating points.  In the process, Doordarshan has shut down its Doordarshan Audience Research Team (DART), an in-house system.  The present practice of a professional Audience Research Unit has now brought DD at par with its private counterparts.

    Amongst several other major initiatives, Doordarshan is in the process of finalisation of external partners for monitoring its channel’s popularity of various networks, especially cable as there have been concerns that the law of the land is not being followed in this regard.  DD expects to partner with professional agencies in order to monitor the violations of the law which is likely to improve its viewership as in absence of any carriage fee being paid by DD, cable operators tend to put DD channels in the difficult to watch remote places.  DD has finalised the process to appoint a professional agency to provide electronic programming guide to its channels on all cable and DTH platforms besides upgrading its own EPG system on DD’s Freedish.

    Doordarshan is in the last stages of finalising the process of outsourcing its corporate advertisement sales of DD News which has faced some difficulties in the recent past.  The hiring of a professional agency is likely to improve its marketing of commercial time.  DD has also floated an RFP to improve its billing system which would network the entire Doordarshan Kendras for effective marketing, monitoring and billing of the commercial ad time.  DD has also focused on the Government business through its Development Communication Division and it is expected that a record increment of 40 per cent in Government revenue received by DD will be registered in this current financial year.

    DD has finalised its new commissioning guidelines which are based on the industry accepted practices of Advertisement Funded Programme, revenue sharing and simulcast.  These new guidelines are expected to source better quality programming for DD while allowing outside producers to share the positive revenue gained from quality products.  This policy will also not require DD to commit itself to funding low quality and low cost programming.

    DD is working towards the amendment of the mandatory sharing of Sports Signals Act, 2007 as the present Act requires all sporting events of national importance to be carried on DD National only, where the opportunity cost makes the present arrangement financially unviable.  DD was proud to have won the exclusive broadcast rights for the recently concluded World Chess Championship in Chennai.  DD has won some major legal battles for the transmission of sports in India as the entire validity of the mandatory sharing of sports Signals Act, 2007 has been questioned in courts.  The recent legal victory of Doordarshan in regard to ICC T-20 World Cup Championship in June, 2013 was a shot in the arm for DD.

    DD has decided to e-auction its film slots in order to bring in transparencies to the entire system and also enhance revenue by allowing the bidders to buy slots on the best prices as deemed fit.

    We expect the next year to be an exciting year when a number of these initiatives will start yielding results for DD with substantial enhancement of revenue besides sourcing of quality software.

    (Ranjan Thakur is additional director general – programmes, Doordarshan. The views expressed in the above article are the author’s personal views)