No dip in Doordarshan views despite increase of Pvt TV channels, Upper House told

New Delhi, Feb 10: There is no decline in viewership in the recent years inspite of increase of Private TV Channels in the broadcasting space during past years and fragmentation of audience due to many private TV channels relaying Doordarshan's live content.

The Minister of Information and Broadcasting was replying to two questions in the Rajya Sabha posed by Akhilesh Prasad Singh.

a) whether Doordarshan viewership has been declining sharply in recent years if so, the reasons therefor and measures taken to arrest this decline; and

(b) the trend of revenue generation in Doordarshan through advertisements during the last three years, year-wise break-up thereof?

Prasar Bharati currently has 36 Doordarshan(DD) 24X7 channels that are operating in Standard Definition (SD) mode and three of these channels are also made available in High Definition (HD) mode to the viewers for enriched viewing experience. In addition, there are 51 co-branded educational channels, the Minister said.

As per BARC (M/s Broadcast Audience Research Council) data for the 22 subscribed SD DD channels out of 36, Gross Unique viewership across the Network from the year 2016 to 2021 is as under:

Prasar Bharati has taken a number of steps to further increase viewership.

• During the lockdown period in 2020 Doordarshan aired iconic serials such as Ramayan and Mahabharat which resulted in record highest television viewership for Doordarshan.
• DD RETRO, a dedicated entertainment channel, has been created to expand the viewership base.
• All Live Sporting events of National Importance are now being aired on a dedicated sports channel DD Sports to ensure a sustained audience.
• DD India has been dedicated to English News and DD News to Hindi News to cater to diverse audiences across India.
• Live streaming is also being done digitally of major live events being broadcast by Doordarshan to engage the Youth and to attract them to Doordarshan channels.

In a sign of changing viewership pattern, it was witnessed recently during coverage of Republic Day Celebrations 2022 that the viewership on YouTube network of DD garnered more views than its TV network, at 2.6 Crore and 2.3 Crore respectively. It is evident that the Doordarshan's viewership on YouTube platform alone was greater than its TV viewership as reported by BARC. This was further exponentially amplified to a total of more than 3.2 Billion Television, Thakur also said.

Viewing Minutes by more than 180 channels across the country which aired these Doordarshan visuals from 9:30 AM in the morning till noon.

(b) The commercial revenue earned by Doordarshan during the last 3 years is as under: