Smriti Irani comes heavily on Prasar Bharti over 'good content' to audience

After her recent stand-off with the public broadcaster, Information and Broadcasting (I&B) Minister Smriti Irani on Monday came down heavily on the Prasar Bharati, asking whether it was offering "good contents" to its audiences in return of about Rs 2,500 crore that it gets from the "honest taxpayers" every year.

"Every year, the honest taxpayers pay close to Rs 2,500 crore to keep the Prasar Bharati in the broadcasting arena alive and thriving. But, how much do we give back to the taxpayers by enriching content through our various mediums? That is an issue, I am sure, the CEO of the Prasar Bharati (Shashi Shekhar Vempati) will look at," she said.

The Minister was addressing the inaugural session of the 24th International Conference and Exhibition on Terrestrial and Satellite Broadcasting, organised by the broadcast engineers society (India).

Prasar Bharati CEO shared the dias with Irani at the event.

Irani also took on public broadcaster on the issue of bringing convergence between terrestrial broadcasting and digital broadcasting.

"There is a capacity for convergence between terrestrial and traditional broadcasting and digital broadcasting. And, while we talk about 5G and pathways in the future, how do we address the present and fill the gap of the past is a huge question that members of Prasar Bharati have to answer," she said.

Irani's comments on the functioning of the Prasar Bharati comes days after her ministry and the public broadcaster locked horns over their powers and jurisdiction in the appointment of an editor-in-chief for the Prasar Bharati News Service and engage consultants at the DD news.

The Ministry recently sent names of two senior journalists to the public broadcaster for appointing one of them as the editor-in-chief for the Prasar Bharati News Service with a fat pay package ranging from Rs 75 lakh per annum to Rs one crore per annum. But, the Prasar Bharati board rejected the Ministry's proposal.

The Prasar Bharati also irked the I&M Ministry after it refused to accept its order for discontinuing services of several consultants appointed by the public broadcaster.

"The tragedy is this that private broadcasters grew at the cost of Prasar Bharati. Good business will only make sense when there is good content.There is increased advertisement spent because of the sheer power of reach of Prasar Bharati." she said.