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Monday Special
Prasar Bharti to fight back
Maneesh Chhibber
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, February 4
Faced with relentless onslaught from private TV channels and other media, Prasar Bharti has decided to fight back. While holding on to its primary role as a provider of clean programmes, both through its numerous TV channels and radio station, Prasar Bharti is learnt to have decided to fight back.

Getting ready to leverage its huge advantage, being the only one in the country to have terrestrial network, which is the largest in the world, Prasar Bharti will provide more infotainment to millions of its viewers.

With 64 DD stations, 32 channels, 330 radio stations, including FM stations, over 1,400 transmitters, Prasar Bharti has more reach than all other TV channels and private FM radio stations put together. It is this muscle that will help it.

According to a source in the national broadcaster, the new Chief Executive Officer, Mr B.S. Lalli, has told his senior officers to be ready for a fightback.

In the wake of the recent controversy over the refusal of Nimbus, which holds broadcast rights over all cricketing action in the country, to share its feed with Prasar Bharti, the public broadcaster has conveyed to the Information and Broadcasting Ministry that by denying it the right to telecast the recently held one-day matches between India and West Indies, Nimbus has unjustly deprived millions of poor fans, who have no access to cable TV the opportunity.

While the Delhi High Court had ordered Nimbus to share its feed with Doordarshan, which was asked to delayed the telecast of the matches by seven minutes, the public broadcaster later moved the court saying that a delayed telecast was tantamount to injustice to the poor people who can't afford cable television.

Later, buckling under pressure from the state-owned broadcaster and sensing the mood of the nation, the Union Cabinet, on February 1, decided to promulgate an Ordinance making it mandatory for the sports channels, radio stations and content providers to share live telecast with Prasar Bharti for sporting events of “national importance” at home and abroad.

Sources say that apart from the efforts put in by CEO Balli, the government was also convinced about the need to take the ordinance route due to the fact that Neo Sports, the channel launched by Nimbus, was not available to all cable subscribers also.

The sources say Prasar Bharti is also contemplating starting a 24-hour Urdu channel. Presently, it has a six-hour Urdu broadcast on the national network.

It is learnt that big names associated with Urdu being considered so that they can be requested to get associated with new channel. Also on the anvil is a multi-language cartoon channel aimed at rural kids.

It is also learnt that the broadcaster, which is facing a huge shortage of manpower, especially those with technical knowhow, is contemplating recruiting fresh staff. In the past almost 10 years, no appointments have been made in Prasar Bharti.

So much so, of the sanctioned strength of over 48,000, over 10,000 posts are presently lying vacant.