(22 March 2007 7:30 pm)

NEW DELHI: Doordarshan will switch over to the recently-launched Indian satellite Insat-4B with effect from June One for its direct-to-home DD Direct service, and has been allocated all the five transponders it has asked for at present, Prasar Bharati CEO BS Lalli said today.

Addressing a press meet here, Lalli said he was in touch with the Department of Space which had expressed happiness that the public broadcaster had decided to switch from a foreign satellite to an Indian satellite.

Lalli said that Prasar Bharati had been paying around five million dollars to the NSS which meant a lot of foreign exchange. Using Insat would mean paying to the Indian Space Research Organization which would mean the money would remain within the country.

Furthermore, he said that this would mean better positioning since Insat was in a geostationary orbit closer to India and therefore parts like the northeast would receive clearer signals.

For the viewers, it would mean just a ‘wee bit tilting’ of the dish from the existing 95 degrees to 93.5 degrees, and a minor alteration in the set top box which would cost nothing.

Doordarshan and the Department of Space were jointly undertaking an awareness programme to make viewers aware about this change.

The satellite had been launched early this month from Kourou in French Guiana. The Insat-4B, the second satellite in the Insat-4 series, is carrying 12 Ku band and as many C band transponders for communication and broadcasting services. Earlier reports had indicated that the Sun Group owned by Kalanithi Maran may get six transponders for its Sun Direct DTH and one for digital satellite news gathering as it had failed to get any transponders earlier following the failure of Insat-4C last year.