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NEW DELHI: For the first time in its history, Prasar Bharati's
annual revenue has crossed the Rs 10 billion mark, standing
at Rs 12 billion for the fiscal 2005-06, which is Rs 3.89
billion above the revenue achieved in the previous fiscal.
Out of this, All India Radio has given Prasar Bharati Rs 2659.6
million and the rest, Rs 9543.6 million has accrued from Doordarshan,
Prasar Bharati's annual report for 2005-06 shows.
Over a five year period, the revenue has risen by 71.42 per
cent, with the revenue of 2001-02 at Rs 7118.9 million.
This year, radio audience in terms of percentage of radio
listnership has risen by 56 per cent in urban areas and 55
per cent in rural areas. The figure five years ago was 52
and 49 respectively.
The corporation's board met six times this year and took
important policy decisions, which included enabling audiences
and viewers to access literary creations across the various
vernaculars.
The launch of DD Urdu is also a significant decision taken
at the 70th board meeting in January last year. The CEO of
Prasar Bharati, BS Lali, last week announced that soon, DD
Urdu would turn into a 24-hr channel.
Another important step has been the amendments pertaining
to sponsorship, acquisition and commissioning of programmes,
so as to keep them in sync with the changing times, a step
to augment veiwership, which had been slipping, as Lali admitted
last week.
The board has not only this year shifted the regional news
channels from Delhi to the respective regions, but has also
set up a full-fledged Commercial Service Centre in Guwahati
to look after the commercial activities of AIR stations in
the north-eastern states.
The report mentions the 'massive digitisation programme'
that has been launched, and says that one SW radio transmitter
has been on trial run, along with four channels of DD on mobile
TV, though the fact remains (unmentioned) that the Planning
Commission is so far yet to release any part of the Rs 120
billion funding for the actual digitisation to go full steam.
Prasar Bharati officials told indiantelevision.com that this
was not expected to happen before August this year, though
they had hoped to see the funding coming off much sooner.
The pilot project of the Data Radio Channel, which operates
on the FM transmitters and allows sending of data-text, picture
and video to any place within the range of the FM, is also
on, the report says.
AIR Audience Research Unit has done about eight surveys,
the report says, though it does not give any details of the
survey findings.
DD has released several new DVDs of programmes from its archives
and as a major marketing initiative, DD Archives has participated
in all major fairs and exhibitions, including India International
Trade Fair, New Delhi the International Film Festival of India,
Goa, and the Pravasi Bharatiya Diwas in Hyderabad, among others.
Of all the programmes on AIR, only 0.93 per cent were sponsored,
while for DD, 35.7 were sponsored and 30.3 were acquired programmes,
the rest being in-house programming, the report states.
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