Doordarshan (DD) was launched in 1959 as the National Television Network with a modest 21 community sets, in Delhi. The year 1982 saw the introduction of a regular satellite link between Delhi and different transmitters, which kick started the transmission of the National Programme. In the same year DD switched to colour transmission. So widespread was its influence that it had penetrated into every nook and corner of the country cutting across demographic and geographic barriers. In 1984, DD added a second channel (DD 2) to provide an alternative option to the metropolitan population of Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai. DD 2 was targeted at urban viewers, particularly the young viewers. In 1995, DD launched DD-India, the international channel of DD catering to the NRI population. In the same year, DD entered into an agreement with the Cable News Network (CNN) and launched 24-hour news and current affairs channel-DD-News. In 1999, DD launched separate channel for sports. In 1984, cable television made its foray in India and it was considered a cost effective alternative to watching borrowed cassettes of feature films. Local entrepreneurs saw in this an opportunity, as investments required to install a cable network were low. In the early 1990s many private channels were launched to tap the nascent cable television in India. Launched in 1992, Zee TV was the driver of the expansion of cable television in India. During 1992-94, there was rapid increase in the number of cable connections in western and Northern India. In southern India, the states of Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh saw an accelerated growth in Tamil and Telugu channels in the mid 1990s. Though by 2000, DD had an incredible reach of 70 mn homes in comparison to C&S's reach to only 30 mn homes, it could not turn this network into an advantage. In the urban households, DD's presence was miniscule with hardly any viewers for its programmes. Few people watched its programmes in the urban areas. DD was also lagging behind the private channels in terms of ad revenues as its TVRs were very low compared to the TVRs of programmes on private channel. During 1996-99, TV advertisement market grew by 76%, but DD's revenue from advertisement registered a negative growth. Though DD continued to be number one in overall audience share, it lost out on viewership segments with the highest purchasing power. In 1998-99, DD channels revenues from advertisements were to the tune of Rs. 4 bn (25.8% of the market). Zee TV was close at Rs. 3.85 bn, Sony at Rs 2.53 bn, and Star Channels at Rs. 2 bn. However, in case of private channels revenues from the ads have grown significantly compared to DD. During the period 1996-99, Zee registered growth of 122% in ad revenues, Sony 299% and Star channels 206%. During the same period, DD's ad revenues had gone down by 70.17%. Till 1998-99, 70% of HLL's ad spend went to DD. In 2000-01, because of poor TVR of DD, HLL's share in DD's Ad revenues had gone down to 50%. During 1999-00, producers and distributors stopped giving films to DD after it started asking for a minimum guarantee of Rs. 10 mn to broadcast a film. This forced DD to repeat the same old films, and the TVRs went down further. DD's sagging TVRs were a matter of concern for clients like Hindustan Lever - DD's largest advertiser. Analysts felt that DD's revenues were going down because advertisers considered it as a downmarket channel, which catered only to the lowest socio-economic classifications, where purchasing power was limited. The revenues earned by DD showed a negative growth during 1997-99. In 1999-00, DD saw its revenues grow by 52.8% but in 2000-01 it was projected to grow at 6% only. Analysts felt that many of DD's problems could be attributed to its loss of identity. Initially, DD officials felt that the National channel would play the role of public broadcaster and DD Metro would be the commercial channel. Private producers and advertisers pointed out that this attitude increased the confusion. With the launch of Star News Channel (the first independent news channel) in 1998, DD news lost its viewers to Star news. The in depth analysis of news items by Star News caught the imagination of the viewers. Analysts felt that private news channels could do well because of the image of DD as propaganda machinery of Government. Analysts also felt that political interference and corruption were other reasons for DD's poor performance. In 1997, the Indian broadcasting bill was introduced in Parliament. DD was brought under a holding company called the 'Prasar Bharti'. In 1998, the Government sacked Prasar Bharti CEO S.S. Gill and government made DD answerable to a parliamentary committee. Political interference at the top level worsened the matters for DD. It was also alleged that members of the Central Commissioning Unit (CCU)1 of DD were taking bribes from the producers to air their programmes. It was reported that in 1998, CBI arrested two DD officials for taking bribes from a serial producer. DD's track record in both payments to and collections from private players had been poor. Over 50 companies owed Rs. 18.2 mn to DD as on July 2001. DD also faced a number of allegations of large-scale scams and irregularities. It was alleged that DD allowed International Cricket Council (ICC) Chief, Jagmohan Dalmiya and WorldTel's Mark Mascarenhas to defraud DD of Rs. 160 mn over the telecast of a 1998 tournament in Dhaka. The poor performance of DD could also be attributed to its pricing for advertisement slots. DD charged the producers around Rs 1 lakh for 10 seconds whereas some highest rated soaps on C&S homes charged half of that. Another major problem that plagued DD was the lack of a marketing team, which could market the advertisement slots as a package. Private channels like ZEE and Star had their own marketing teams, which provided the advertisers with package of advertisement slots on their programmes. But in case of DD, there were 56 different producers with 56 different half-an-hour program slots for four hours of prime time each week, who would sell their commercial time separately, to the same advertiser. But advertisers preferred package deals, which would give them airtime across the programmes for whole week. After S.S.Gill was sacked in 1998, Rajeeva Ratna Shah (Shah) was appointed as the new CEO of Prasar Bharti. Shah started redoing DD1's and DD2's programming and also started weeding out corruption at the network. To weed out corruption, Shah stopped commissioning of programmes on DD1 and DD2. He decided to auction programming hours to the private players who produced the programs for the DD and market them. Shah also announced setting up of a board comprising of eminent filmmakers, actors, poets, writers and people from different walks of life to revamp DD. In 2000, government appointed a committee headed by late Shunu Sen, CEO, Quadra Advisory, a Strategic Marketing Consultancy, N. R. Narayanmurthy, CEO, Infosys and Kiran Karnik former CEO, Discovery Communications, India, to work out a revival package for DD. Three options came up before the committee - first, privatization of DD, second; DD continuing as a Public service broadcaster (PSB), and third, running DD on both PSB and commercially viable lines. Of the three options, the committee recommended the third option. The committee felt that there was no need to privatize DD but recommended drastic steps for its revival. Some of the important steps suggested by the committee were: • to downsize 25% of DD's 21,000 strong staff, • getting into new media, • setting up its own marketing department, • developing a sharper programming focus. One of the recommendations was to improve the quality of broadcast. DD sought the help of BBC to digitise its channels. Modi Entertainment Network began distributing the five DD channels (National, Metro, News, Sports and World) via satellite. DD went in for a revenue sharing deal with B4U for showing movies, and auctioned 7-10 p.m. slot on DD Metro to HFCL-Nine network, which supplied the DD with programs for the 3 hours. In addition to Rs. 1.21 bn that DD got from this deal, the move helped DD to penetrate into urban homes and also C&S homes to some extent. DD also entered into an agreement with the Direct to Home (DTH) platforms like Echostar and Astra to distribute DD-World in 79 countries. DD employed Accenture to advice it on how to go about revamping its financial, management and administrative systems. The National Institute of Design was employed to redesign the logo. In 2000, DD announced that it would start its own peoplemeter project through a separate corporate entity in partnership with a few private channels and some advertisers. DD felt that its programmes were not getting enough viewership ratings because the viewer sample being used by the two firms doing the ratings - IMRB-Ac Neilsen and ORG-Marg were skewed towards C&S homes and hence did not accurately reflect the viewing habits of the Indian populace.

1. The present problems in DD have their roots in the mismanagement of affairs. Critically examine the above statement. 2. Though by 2000, DD had an incredible reach of 70 mn homes in comparison to C&S's reach to only 30 mn homes, it could not turn this network into an advantage. Discuss the steps taken by DD to revive itself.