Last month, Prasar Bharati CEO Shashi Shekhar Vempati had said on Twitter that the financial year 2021-22 will close with a strong revenue growth of 13% from commercial operations of around Rs 1,350 crore.
The significant increase in revenue came in 2020 after a prolonged lull created by the COVID-19 pandemic, which had, among other reasons, led to a fall in Prasar Bharati’s net income.
In his tweet, Vempati said that despite the uncertainty of the pandemic, the strong, post-Covid recovery of All India Radio (AIR) and the “sustained growth momentum” of DD Free Dish and Digital fueled growth.
Vempati told News18 that the factors contributing to this growth, apart from substantial free dish development and AIR’s post-pandemic recovery, are high growth in the digital arms of AIR and DD and rental recovery from private and cellular towers.
“We have managed to recover a substantial amount of rent on our towers from private FM channels and cellular towers,” he said, adding that many of them had not paid the dues earlier.
Prasar Bharati – the parent body of DD and AIR – is provided budgetary support by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (I&B). It also generates Internal and Extra-Budgetary Resources (IEBR), which includes funds mobilized by Central Public Sector Enterprises through profit, debt and equity.
These key policy decisions governing content and procurement for public service broadcasters were also discussed at Prasar Bharati’s 173rd board meeting on Thursday.
On Thursday, Vempati said in a tweet that the board members appreciated the recent coverage of DD India at Cannes and that there will be a new primetime program soon, apart from various programs on DD India and DD National during Operation Ganga.
Take care of @DDIndialive The Board members appreciated the recent coverage of DD India at Cannes and during Operation Ganga apart from diverse programming like “The Journey” on DD India for achieving the highest reach among English news channels. @ShainaNC ,
— Shashi Shekhar Vempati Shashi Shekhar (@shashidigital) 2 June 2022
future challenges
Going forward, Vempati said, the challenge will be to sustain Free Dish growth which has stagnated at Rs 700 crore.
“Also, TV has the potential to grow to reach a revenue of Rs 1,000 crore with fresh outsourcing of DD slots and fresh content,” he added.
These efforts have also increased the viewership of DD.
In February this year, Information and Broadcasting (I&B) Minister Anurag Thakur said that despite an increase in the number of private television channels over the years, the overall viewership for DD channels has not declined and this is because Live content of many private television channels DD.
As reported by News18, data presented in Rajya Sabha shows that gross unique viewership for DD channels including DD National, DD News and DD India has grown substantially since 2016.
At present, DD has 36 channels, which run 24×7. Among them, DD Punjabi, DD Sahyadri and DD National have the highest viewership. It also has 51 co-branded educational channels.
At the peak of the lockdown in 2020, Prasar Bharati decided to re-telecast the popular mythological shows Ramayan and Mahabharat and launched DD Retro to increase viewership and digital live-streaming among other broadcaster viewership.
Innovative and massive coverage of Republic Day celebrations also contributed to DD’s viewership.
According to Vempati, other major improvements for DD were to completely phase out its analog terrestrial TV transmitters by March, move to a digital network and revamp of the DD app, currently underway to put out more curated content.
Prasar Bharati had also conducted a major manpower audit and is in the process of implementing some of the suggestions that emerged.
One of them was phasing out obsolete technology, as part of which obsolete TV transmitters were completely phased out for DD by the end of March, but pending in All India Radio, Vempati said.
He said that new talent would be brought under the suggestions under the revised contractual policy. The policies governing the content broadcast by broadcasters have also been reformed and fresh content is being received under them.
“Another major area of focus is distribution. There will be dedicated people for distribution in every zone. They will also ensure compulsory transportation of DD channels.
Last year, Prasar Bharati had announced a collaboration with IIT Kanpur to test the feasibility of ‘direct-to-mobile’ (D2M) technology. A panel set up by the Department of Telecommunications is also studying how a spectrum band can be harnessed for the technology.
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