Cricket, blockbusters prop Prasar Bharati revenue

New Delhi, Apr 9: Driven by the need to carve out a distinct market savvy identity, public broadcaster Prasar Bharati is fast learning the mantra of aggressive marketing from its private sector rivals and reorienting its programmes for securing a wider audience.

Conscious that it cannot be a ''bottomless pit for government bounty'', Prasar Bharati, which has posted a record net revenue of nearly Rs 1,200 crore in 2005-06, has added to its coffers by marketing of international cricket matches and telecast of latest Bollywood blockbusters.

Of the Rs 1200 crore, Doordarshan (DD) accounted for Rs 960 crore and All India radio (AIR) Rs 270 crore.

Besides, event marketing, reality shows, the combined packaging of AIR and DD and shifting to SFS (Self Finance Schemes) from the existing policy of selling slots have boosted the revenues of the public broadcaster.

Repositioning of the channel to bring in large female viewership in the Hindi Belt Network (HBN) has also paid rich dividends.

Enthused over the success of the Marketing Division in Mumbai, Prasar Bharati has established more such divisions in the cities of Delhi, Chennai, Hyderabad, Bangalore and Kolkata.

If Prasar Bharati is sensing a turnaround, it is largely because of marketing of international cricket matches. The Mumbai Division alone generated Rs 55 crore in the 2001 India-West cricket series.

This increased to Rs 182 crore from the India-Pak series and Rs 140 crore from the India-Sri Lanka-South Africa triangular series last year.

Another reason for improved revenues is the change in the policy on screening of films on DD. Showing new blockbuster films like 'Baghbaan', 'Main Hoon Na' and 'Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham' have earned more viewership and revenue for DD. These three films yielded a revenue of Rs 1.25 crore each.

''Today, DD is able to show blockbuster films on prime time on Fridays and Saturdays. This is today one of the biggest properties on DDI, besides cricket telecast,'' says Prasar Bharati CEO K S Sarma.

DD, which earned Rs 65 crore from telecast of feature films during 2004-05 now aims to earn Rs 100-120 crore per year through this.

Prasar Bharati, the sole public broadcaster in the world to provide free-to-air Direct-To-Home (DTH) service, will unleash more prime time channels and also increase its DTH coverage to 51 channels, including 32 private channels from next month, which will bring in more revenues. The target is 100 DTH channels by the end of this year.

DD has fixed a Rs one crore fee for private channels to find place in the DTH platform (DD Direct Plus), which currently beams 33 channels. As many as 68 channels have shown interest in the DD Direct Plus, which claims a viewership of 50 million, 80 per cent of them in the rural areas.

Conceding that DD News channel has not done as well as it should have, Mr Sarma said even then the channel has generated a revenue of Rs 15 crore.

Doordarshan has not been able to compete with private news channels in speed and other sectors because of lack of resources, he says.

Earnings from AIR have also gone up. Daily audience for the 230 AIR stations in the country is now 300-400 million and the figures go up to 500 million when there is a cricket match.

The AIR station in Bangalore now earns more than any private radio station.

Every language in the country is to get its own 24-hour news channel on AIR by the end of this year when it will beam 50 channels.

DD has also launched an SMS-based news service to provide information on the latest stock prices on mobile phones. In May, video clippings of news will also be available on mobile phones.

Mobile phone users will have to dial 676733 to get the latest news from around the world.

Doordarshan, which already has an interactive voice response (IVR)-based news service, becomes the first service provider to have both SMS and IVR-based service on the same short code (676733).

By April-end, three prime DD channels -- Doordarshan India, Doordarshan Bharati and DD News -- will be available on 3G mobile phone all over the world.

Also, from May 27 the Indian diaspora in the US will be able to watch Doordarshan India. The channel is a favourite among the Indian immigrants in Canada. DD is to earn 3 million dollars through the channel.

UNI