Prasar Bharti to close FY-21-22 with strong revenue growth of 13%

New Delhi, Apr 26: Prasar Bharti will close the FY 2021-2022 with a strong revenue growth of 13 per cent from commercial operations at nearly rs 1,350 crore.

This has been fuelled primarily by the strong post COVID-19 recovery of the All India Radio (AIR) and the continued growth momentum of FreeDish and Digital despite uncertainty of the pandemic.

Taking to Twitter, Prasar Bharat Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Shashi Shekhar Vempati said, "happy to share Prasar Bharati will close FY 2021-2022 with strong revenue growth of 13% from commercial ops at nearly 1350cr, fuelled primarily by strong post COVID recovery of All India Radio and continued growth momentum of FreeDish and Digital despite uncertainty of pandemic.:

While road to financial self sustainability for the Public Broadcaster is a way off, foundation has been laid with key reforms such as phase out of obsolete technologies, consolidation of redundant operations, IT/Digital enablement of functions and new avenues for monetisation, he said in another tweet.

The footprint of Doordarshan has increased between 2017 and 2021. In 2017 the number of satellite channels stood at 23 as opposed to 36 in 2021. The number of analog transmitters which stood at 1,412 in 2017 came down to 50 in 2021 as part of the programme to phase out obsolete technology.

In terms of the All India Radio, the stations have gone up to 485 in 2021 when compared to the 413 in 2017. Further the FM stations are now reaching 70 per cent of the Indian population. As part of phasing out obsolete technology, the number of SW and MW stations have come down from 48 to 12 and 128 from 148 respectively between 2017 and 2021.

The DTH (Freedish) subscribers have increased from 28 million to 48 million between 2017 and 2022.

The DTH revenue also saw an impressive jump from 250 crore in 2017 to 700 crore in 2021.

Another interesting statistic shows the average time to clear a file. While in 2017 it was 7 days in 2021 it is anything between 2 and 24 hours. The number of IT based portals, apps for ease of business (external) stood at nil in 2017. In 2021 it stands at five. Similarly the IT based portals (internal) now stand at 2, while in 2017 it was nil.

DD India is now available in 37 countries while the NewsonAir App reach is spread across 150 countries.