Improve DD content, get more ads: Smriti

NEW DELHI: In a sharp comment on the need for Prasar Bharati to revamp its content in order to draw more audiences and to increase revenue from advertising, Union information and broadcasting minister (I&B) Smriti Irani said on Monday the state-run Doordarshan should be identified with the quality of content it runs rather than only for the wide reach of its network.
Stressing the need to develop regional language content in Doordarshan for better and more effective communication to people in the farthest corners of the country, Irani, while inaugurating the Broadcast Engineering Society (BES) Expo 2018 in New Delhi, said Prasar Bharati should ramp up its revenue through advertisement to ease the burden on taxpayers.

“Doordarshan should leverage the reach created by DD Free Dish (free-to-air direct to home service) to create quality content and improve revenue generation through advertisement and ease the burden on the taxpayers,” she said.

On the one hand, while Irani acknowledged the technological leaps taken by the broadcasting industry, she also urged BES to conduct outreach programmes among students and faculty of Broadcast Engineering Institutes to encourage students to take up broadcast engineering as viable career options.

She also said BES should train the entire posse of over 8,000 broadcast engineering staff at Prasar Bharati, instead of just about 1200 employees, as is being done at present. Pointing the challenges that the broadcasting industry was facing, the I&B minister said BES should deliberate over ways to develop technologies that promote the Make in India scheme of the Union government.

Referring to the challenge the Indian industry faced in developing state-of-the-art set top boxes, and how the Chinese markets were ahead of India, Irani said she was hopeful efforts would be made in this direction as well. Irani also reiterated the need for regional language content to improve Prasar Bharati’s reach across India. She also said smartphone usage in India is set to grow to 530 million by the end of 2018.