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Sircar, an IAS officer from the West Bengal cadre and now the CEO of Prasar Bharati, took over the reins in February and is, of course, not content with just making superficial changes. He is determined revamp the public broadcaster — which has recently been hit by frequent changes in the top slot, as well as financial scams — so that it can get back viewership, as well as advertisers who seem to have forsaken it for aggressive private channels.
Sircar has to just find the money for some operational costs which include maintenance, software expenses and marketing. That could have made his life so much easier— but many say Sircar’s confidence in bridging the still yawning gap in revenues might be misplaced. That is because of Prasar Bharati’s poor record in garnering advertising. This is reflected in the fact that it has a less than 10 per cent share of the Rs 15,000 crore earned by broadcasters every year through advertising. And, this is despite the fact that its reach is the highest — a staggering 150 million homes across the country. In comparison, Zee is available in just 32 million homes.
Prasar Bharati officials admit that 60 per cent of the cost goes in maintaining this terrestrial network which, of course, gives hardly any return. As a result, it only forks out Rs 300 crore on software development, or a mere one-fifth of the total cost. This, again, is in contrast to competing broadcasters who spend more than half their expenditure on procuring software. To make matters worse, it has an upper limit of Rs 6 lakh for programming.
Sircar is looking at expanding the scope of deals with private broadcasters to simultaneously telecast a programme across private channels, as well as on Doordarshan. This would be based on a revenue-sharing deal. Sircar has already undertaken this with Star TV’s popular show Satyamev Jayate and has earned a cool Rs 14 crore, while Coke has experimented the same with its show Coke Studio.
Sircar is also looking at increasing the cap of Rs 6 lakh per episode which has been imposed. He says he could go in for more expensive programmes and attract viewers, provided these are funded through advertisements and sponsorships.
Private competitors in the DTH space say that DD Direct — its DTH service — makes hardly any money for Doordarshan and, therefore, is completely mismanaged. “They get no subscription revenue from DTH, everyone watches it for free, its boxes are not supplied by them and that is the only investment a subscriber has to make. He gets all the free channels without paying,” says the head of a leading DTH player in the country. He adds that unlike their strategy which is to offer more pay channel options to customers so that it can increase subscription revenues — DD Direct has completely ignored this revenue generating area.
Sircar, however, is aware of the problems. He is making an effort to improve the DTH services by planning to increase the number of channels on it from 59 to 97 channels in the next six months and then look at the business afresh.
He is also hoping that digitization (from November 1, it will be mandatory in the four metros) will be beneficial to Doordarshan, as many cable operators remove the mandatory Doordarshan channels from the prime band. Says Sircar: “It is difficult to chase more than 60,000 local cable operators and track what each is up to. Thus, Doordarshan would stand to gain in terms of a clear and visible display after digitization.”
Via Business Standard
Sircar has to just find the money for some operational costs which include maintenance, software expenses and marketing. That could have made his life so much easier— but many say Sircar’s confidence in bridging the still yawning gap in revenues might be misplaced. That is because of Prasar Bharati’s poor record in garnering advertising. This is reflected in the fact that it has a less than 10 per cent share of the Rs 15,000 crore earned by broadcasters every year through advertising. And, this is despite the fact that its reach is the highest — a staggering 150 million homes across the country. In comparison, Zee is available in just 32 million homes.
Prasar Bharati officials admit that 60 per cent of the cost goes in maintaining this terrestrial network which, of course, gives hardly any return. As a result, it only forks out Rs 300 crore on software development, or a mere one-fifth of the total cost. This, again, is in contrast to competing broadcasters who spend more than half their expenditure on procuring software. To make matters worse, it has an upper limit of Rs 6 lakh for programming.
Sircar is looking at expanding the scope of deals with private broadcasters to simultaneously telecast a programme across private channels, as well as on Doordarshan. This would be based on a revenue-sharing deal. Sircar has already undertaken this with Star TV’s popular show Satyamev Jayate and has earned a cool Rs 14 crore, while Coke has experimented the same with its show Coke Studio.
Sircar is also looking at increasing the cap of Rs 6 lakh per episode which has been imposed. He says he could go in for more expensive programmes and attract viewers, provided these are funded through advertisements and sponsorships.
Private competitors in the DTH space say that DD Direct — its DTH service — makes hardly any money for Doordarshan and, therefore, is completely mismanaged. “They get no subscription revenue from DTH, everyone watches it for free, its boxes are not supplied by them and that is the only investment a subscriber has to make. He gets all the free channels without paying,” says the head of a leading DTH player in the country. He adds that unlike their strategy which is to offer more pay channel options to customers so that it can increase subscription revenues — DD Direct has completely ignored this revenue generating area.
Sircar, however, is aware of the problems. He is making an effort to improve the DTH services by planning to increase the number of channels on it from 59 to 97 channels in the next six months and then look at the business afresh.
He is also hoping that digitization (from November 1, it will be mandatory in the four metros) will be beneficial to Doordarshan, as many cable operators remove the mandatory Doordarshan channels from the prime band. Says Sircar: “It is difficult to chase more than 60,000 local cable operators and track what each is up to. Thus, Doordarshan would stand to gain in terms of a clear and visible display after digitization.”
Via Business Standard