10th February, 2003
Ministry of Information & Broadcasting  


PROFESSIONAL COMPETENCE AND CREATIVITY TO BE TOP PRIORITY ON DD/AIR

PARLIAMENATRY CONSULTATIVE COMMITTEE OF I&B MEETS


The Minister of Information and Broadcasting, Shri Ravi Shankar Prasad has stated that the Information and Broadcasting Ministry would give priority to encourage creativity, professionalism and competition on Doordarshan and All India Radio as compared to other private channels. Presisding over the meeting of the Parliamentary Consultative Committee attached to his ministry here today, Shri Prasad said that the effort would be to promote creativity so that development presentation also becomes entertainment. The other area getting his priority would be films which have growth rate of 100 per cent and great potential of employment and revenue generation. He said that he would see that this sector gets the best incentive, initiative, and support.

The Minister said that both DD and AIR have the best available talent and are capable of producing much better programmes, but what they must do is to project themselves properly and market aggressively. He said that Government would provide more support for content creation.

Shri Prasad said that both DD and AIR would project the 10th Plan in order to inform people so that they are able to participate in the implementation of this ‘People’s Plan’. He said that the Public Service Broadcaster character of Doordarshan and AIR must be maintained and should not be affected by commercial considerations.

The meeting was informed that DD India, the International Channel of Doordarshan was extremely popular among Indians abroad. It beams live national events like Republic Day and Independence Day celebrations for its global audience. Its programming aims at offering an update on the India’s social, cultural, political and economic scene. It carries ‘live’ news bulletins in Hindi, English, Sanskrit and Urdu, hourly news headlines, feature on political events and discussions on events of national and international significance. DD India also began telecasting regional language bulletins in Malayalam, Gujrati and Tamil to begin with. The Channel now telecasts 18 hours of fresh programming.

The meeting was also intimated that the Development Communication Division has undertaken publicity campaign for several Central Ministries and departments. Rural Development campaign is targeted at 600 districts and 6 lakh villages broadcasting programs in 29 languages and dialects. Over 1000 programs and 233 spots have been produced on health care, Population and Poverty, Pulse polio, Blood donation, AIDS Awareness, Iodine Deficiency etc.

Doordarshan commands a viewership of 259 million. As compared to this, among private channels Star Plus has a viewership of 54 million, Sony 41 million and Zee TV 36 million. All channels put together DD reaches 259 million as compared to the combined viewership of 166 million of all channels. Percentage wise, Doordarshan News captures 89.91 %, Aaj Tak 5.47 %, Zee News 2.84 %, Star News 1.32 %, BBC 0.20 % and CNBC 0.13%.

The members gave several suggestion to improve Doordarshan programmes so that it is able to maintain its prime place in broadcasting in India . Those who attended included Sarvshree Balram Singh Yadav, Hannan Mollah, E.M. Sudarsna Natchiappan, C Narayana Reddy, Kartar Singh Duggal, S.S Chandran, A.J. Maroo and Smt Saroj Dubey.