What kind of effort are you planning to put into Prasar Bharati to improve its commercial revenue position?
Prasar Bharati as a public servicebroadcaster has certain social responsibilities which cannot be quantified. But, there is also a need for generating commercial surpluses. Today, with digitisation it is much easier to generate commercial revenue by catering to different niches and markets. DD channels are a unique selling point for Prasar Bharati. In case Doordarshan signals are put on the digital mode, the same bandwidth would give us space to squeeze more content. The digitised signals also means better transmission quality and signals without radio signal frequency. With signal improvement both for the terrestrial and satellite, we expect to get better programmes and mop up commercial revenue.

Are you considering digitisation of terrestrial and satellite signals of DD?
Preliminary thinking is taking place in this area and some sort of initiative is expected soon. We have 25 transponders and in case we are to run channels on the analogue mode we need one whole transponder for a channel. The cost for us in that case would be Rs5 crore per annum whereas through digitisation we can put five to six channels on one transponder in which case the cost for us would come down to Rs 75 lakh per channel.

Do you think Prasar Bharati as an organisation can actually support such efforts?
Prasar Bharati as an organisation has tremendous strength in terms of infrastructure, investment that has already been made and human resources. At this point much of its capacity is lying idle and our endeavour would be to improve the utilisation of such resources from the current sub-optimal level. We are also expecting support on two accounts. One, legislative support in the form of Cable Networks Amendment Act, which would make it mandatory for the cable operators to carry DD-I and DD-II on the prime band as satellite channels. So far, cable operators have been using the Yagi antenna which results in weak DD signals. Second, we would improve transmission quality either by digitisation or replacing transmitters.

Where do you thinkDoordarshan's weakness lies in the current context vis-a-vis satellite channels?
Our current weakness is a result of two major factors: Poor transmission and regression in quality of programming content. In terms of programming, certain steps have been initiated to strengthen DD's position. Our prime-time news still has a very high rating but the problem lies in the juxtaposition of premium and weak programmes. Our marketing and commercial department is also quite weak and needs improvement.

What kind of steps are you planning to take to improve programming content?
We are thinking of various things including entertainment, art, culture, news and current affairs, life style, economic issues and political management. The advantage of being a public broadcaster is many. There are so many good theatre groups in the country that they should be agreeable to the idea of filming some of their productions for DD. The same is true for All India Radio. We have such a rich reserve of classical musicand AIR would have to take the initiative for archiving some of the maestros who are probably in the last stages of their lives. If they are not recorded now they would probably be forgotten and an important part of our heritage would be lost.

How do you see the government-Prasar Bharati relationship?
I don't see any hiatus between the two. The challenges before Prasar Bharati are many and I can only see a convergence between efforts of the two in taking up those challenges and offer private satellite channels a run for their money.