The strange case of DD and the Sydney Olympics

Doordarshan's marketing seems to be working with more and more Indians opting to stay in India and watch the Olympics on Doordarshan than spend a little more than a lakh to go to Sydney.

However analysts watching Doordarshan's marketing of the Games have compared it with ESPNs and Star Sports glitzy advertisements on their bouquet of channels and have criticised Doordarshan for not doing so on its wide network of channels. DD is expecting to rake in Rs 200 million in ad revenue.

Pritish Nandy Communications has received the broadcast management rights for the three DD channels and is claiming that its revenues will soar from Rs 140 million in '99-00 to Rs 500 million this year. The fact that no one expects Indians to win any medals and Indians obsession with cricket have not helped either.

To add icing to the cake, DD will be flying a 21 member team to Sydney to customise the feed for India and provide special graphics. Analysts however feel that DD would have been better off sticking to the live feed in the form of six channels which it will get from the Sydney Games authorities.

All this talk does however make one feel that the Olympic athletes are not going to be the only ones to perform gymnastics this Olympics. Indian viewers may well have to do some head stands to get a load of the action, knowing DD's tendency to mess up even when the going is simple and good.




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