How Prasar Bharati Logged 13% Revenue Growth, What’s the Way Forward for DD and AIR

Last month, Prasar Bharati CEO Shashi Shekhar Vempati said on Twitter that financial year 2021-22 would close with a strong revenue growth of 13% from commercial operations around Rs 1,350 crore.

The significant growth in revenue came after a prolonged lull created by the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, which among other reasons, had led to a decline in Prasar Bharati’s net income.

In his tweet, Vempati said that the growth was fuelled by strong, post-Covid recovery of All India Radio (AIR) and “continued growth momentum” of DD Free Dish and digital, despite uncertainty of the pandemic.

Vempati told News18 that the factors which contributed to this growth, aside from a substantial free dish growth and the post-pandemic recovery of AIR, is high growth in the digital arms of AIR and DD and recovery of rentals from private and cellular towers.

“We managed to recover significant amount of rentals on our towers from private FM channels and cellular towers,” he said, adding that several of them had not paid the dues earlier.

Prasar Bharati — the parent body of DD and AIR — is provided a budgetary support by the Information and Broadcasting (I&B) ministry. It also generates the Internal and Extra Budgetary Resources (IEBR), which include funds raised by central public sector enterprises through profits, loans and equities.

Much of these key policy decisions governing content and procurements for the public service broadcasters were also discussed in the 173rd board meeting of Prasar Bharati on Thursday.

On Thursday, Vempati said in a tweet that the board members appreciated the recent coverages of DD India in Cannes and during Operation Ganga apart from the diverse programming on DD India and DD National will soon have a new primetime programmes.

FUTURE CHALLENGES

Going forward, Vempati said, the challenge will be to maintain the free dish growth which has stabilised at Rs 700 crore.

“Moreover, TV has an upside potential to grow so as to reach revenues of Rs 1,000 crore with fresh outsourcing of DD slots and fresh content,” he said.

These efforts have also led to a spike in the viewership of DD.

In February this year, Information and Broadcasting (I&B) minister Anurag Thakur said the overall viewership for DD channels has not declined in the recent past despite the growth in the number of private television channels over the years and this is because several private television channels carry DD’s live content.

As reported by News18, the data presented in the Rajya Sabha showed the gross unique viewers for DD channels, including DD National, DD News and DD India, have substantially grown since 2016.

At present, DD has 36 channels, which run 24×7. Among these, DD Punjabi, DD Sahyadri and DD National have the maximum viewership. It has also 51 co-branded educational channels.

At the peak of the lockdown in 2020, Prasar Bharati decided to re-telecast popular mythical show Ramayan and Mahabharat and started DD Retro to increase viewership and digital live-streaming among others broadcaster’s viewership.

Innovative and large-scale coverage of the Republic Day celebrations also contributed to DD’s viewership.

As per Vempati, other major reforms for DD were to phase out its analog terrestrial TV transmitters completely by March, moving towards a digital network and revamp of the DD app, currently underway, to put in more curated content.

Prasar Bharati had also undertaken a major manpower audit and is in the process of implementing some of the suggestions which came up.

One of them was to phase out obsolete technology, as part of which obsolete TV transmitters were completely phased out by end of March for DD, but is pending in AIR, Vempati said.

He added that fresh talent would be brought in, as part of the suggestions, with a revised contractual policy. Policies governing content aired by the broadcasters have also been revamped and fresh content is being sourced under them.

“Another major area of focus is distribution. Every zone will have dedicated people for distribution. They will also ensure mandatory carriage of DD channels,” he said.

Last year, Prasar Bharati had announced a collaboration with IIT Kanpur to test the feasibility of the ‘Direct-to-Mobile’ (D2M) technology. A panel set up by the Department of Telecommunications is also studying how a spectrum band can be used for the technology.

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