MUMBAI: Doordarshan will telecast Gora, based on a novel by Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore, from 29 October at 9.30 pm.

The 26 episode series will be shown every Monday and Tuesday at 9.30 pm.

The channel said that the launch of this serial is a step towards the revival and rejuvenation of Doordarshan.

Produced by the filmmaker, curator, distributor, exhibitor and producer Gargi Sen, the series has been directed by Somnath Sen who is known for his work in cinema. It has been filmed by B Chaki and scripted by Sreejaya Radhakrishnan, while the music has been composed by Dabbu and Sanjoy using Tagore?s music of that period as reference and also sourced from Tagore?s own inspiration, the Baul music of Bengal. Suchismita Dasgupta as the stylist has created the period of the 1880s in which the story is set.

The channel said, "The true definition of a classic is its timelessness. A work of literature written a century earlier is a classic if it is as relevant today as it was when it was first conceived. Perhaps that is what differentiates first Asian Nobel Laureate and eminent author Rabindranath Tagore from his contemporaries: almost everything he wrote in his lifetime is as relevant to the India of today as it was to the India of the colonial era. Tagore?s second novel ?Gora? ? arguably one of his best - deals with the debate between modernity and tradition with arguments both for and against traditionally accepted norms."

NEW DELHI: Close on the heels of a financial package including some waivers approved recently by the Union Cabinet, Prasar Bharati today announced that the government had approved the filling up of 1150 posts in the programming and the technical wings of Doordarshan and All India Radio.

These posts are part of the 3452 essential category posts which were approved by the Group of Ministers (GoM) headed by the present Finance Minister P. Chidamabaram in 2011. A majority of these posts belong to Group B & C, that is, Grade Pay of less than Rs 4,600. While the Group B & C would be filled up by Staff Selection Commission, the remaining would be filled up by the Prasar Bharati Recruitment Board. The recruitment process is expected to be over by middle of the next year.

Prasar Bharati CEO Jawhar Sircar said: ?This is the first major infusion of new blood into Doordarshan and All India Radio after a period of 15 long years. After approval of the Cabinet for the financial restructuring, which involved a waiver of Rs 120.71 billion, this is the second biggest decision. It would go a long way in creating quality content for our viewers and help us in facing the emerging competition.?

The 1150 posts include Assistant Station Directors, Assistant Director (Programme), Engineering Assistants, Programme Executives, Transmission Executives, Technicians, Camerapersons, Production Assistants and Administrative Staff.

Member (Personnel) Brig. (Retd) V A M Hussain added: ?These were critical and essential posts, which had lapsed and needed to be revived. A number of our stations were without engineers and programming staff, which had affected their operations. It is a new dawn on the horizon of Prasar Bharati and will help the Corporation to tide over its acute manpower shortage.?

After the revival of the Prasar Bharati Board under the current CEO, it has been working on a number of plans to revive the public broadcaster through aggressive focus on shoring up revenues through marketing, organisational restructuring and manpower planning.

The pubcaster plans to have six senior officers with domain expertise to look after various verticals including Marketing, DTH, Technology, Infrastructure, Archives and Security. The Corporation has also engaged an HR Advisor of retired Secretary level to expedite promotions of staff persons, who had stagnated at the same posts for as long as 20 years and had little motivation to give their best.

In other organisational reforms, the Doordarshan and AIR zones are being combined into a total of seven zones viz. North Zone, North Central Zone, Central Zone, East Zone, West Zone, South Zone and North-East Zone. At present there are 12 Zones in All India Radio and six Zones in Doordarshan and 5 Zones in Engineering Wing combined for AIR/DD.

In the restructured model, each Zone will have three ADGs with one each for Engineering Projects, Engineering Maintenance and Programmes & Administration. The reorganisation, which makes DD and AIR coterminous for the first time in the history, is aimed at decentralisation and improvement in organisational efficiency.

NEW DELHI: All India Radio and Doordarshan, which provide a platform for political parties to make poll broadcasts before every election, will also organise a maximum of two panel discussions and/or debates on the Kendras/Stations for the forthcoming elections to the state assemblies in Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat.

Each eligible party can nominate one representative to such a programme, but the Election Commission of India will approve the names of coordinators for such panel discussions and debates in consultation with the Prasar Bharati Corporation.

The Commission has, as in previous years, worked out a schedule for the time to be given for poll broadcasts to different parties. The facilities of use of broadcast and telecast time will be available only to National Parties as there are no ‘Recognised State Parties‘ in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh.

The facilities will be available from the Regional Kendra of the All India Radio (AIR) and Doordarshan and in the headquarters of Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat and relayed by other stations within the respective States.

A base time of 45 minutes will be given to each National Party uniformly on the Regional Kendra of Doordarshan network and All India Radio network in the State of Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat.

The additional time to be allotted to the parties has been decided on the basis of the poll performance of the parties in the last assembly election from the State of Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat.

In a single session of broadcast, no party will be allocated more than 15 minutes.

The period of broadcast and telecast will be between the last date of filing the nominations and will end two days before the date of poll in the State of Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat. However, there will be no telecast or broadcast during the 48 hours preceding the close of polls as per specific provisions of the Representation of People Act, 1951.

Prasar Bharati in consultation with the Commission will decide the actual date and time for broadcast and telecast. This will be subject to the broad technical constraints governing the actual time of transmission available with the Doordarshan and All India Radio.

The guidelines prescribed by the Commission for telecast and broadcast will be strictly followed. The parties will be required to submit transcripts and recording in advance. The parties can get this recorded at their own cost in studios, which meet the technical standards prescribed by Prasar Bharati or at the Doordarshan/All India Radio Kendras.

They can, in the alternative, have these recorded in the studios of Doordarshan and All India Radio by advance requests. In such cases, the recordings may be done at the State Capital and at timings indicated by Doordarshan/All India Radio in advance.

Time Vouchers will be available in the denomination of five minutes with one voucher having time allotment from 1 to 4 minutes and the parties will be free to combine them suitably. The allotment of time to different political parties is given in a statement enclosed herewith.

Introduced for the Lok Sabha elections in 1998, the scheme of free broadcasts was extended by the Commission to the State Assemblies held after 1998 and General Elections to the Lok Sabha in 1999, 2004 and 2009.

With the amendments to the Representation of People Act 1951 through "Election and Other Related Laws (Amendment) Act, 2003" and the rules notified thereunder, equitable time sharing for campaigning by recognised political parties on electronic media now has statutory basis.

In exercise of the powers conferred by clause (a) of the Explanation below section 39A of the Representation of People Act, 1951, the Central Government has notified all such broadcasting media which are owned or controlled or financed wholly or substantially by funds provided to them by the Central Government as the electronic media for the purposes of that section. Therefore, the Commission has decided to extend the said scheme of equitable time sharing on electronic media through Prasar Bharati Corporation to the ensuing General Election to the State Legislative Assemblies of Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat 2012.

GENERAL ELECTION TO
THE STATE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF HIMACHAL PRADESH 2012.

Time available to National Parties on Regional Kendras/State Capital Kendras of Doordarshan/All India Radio

GENERAL ELECTION TO
THE STATE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF GUJARAT 2012.

Time available to National/State Parties on Regional Kendras/State Capital Kendras of Doordarshan/All India Radio

LIST OF POLITICAL PARTIES

Beginning with one channel in 1992 to 31 channels today and counting, Subhash Chandra‘s Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited has indeed come a long way.

Indiantelevision.com spoke to industry vetarans like Kunal Dasgupta, Shashi Sinha and and some of the former Zee employees to trace back Chandra‘s dynamism and the company‘s history.

Former MSM CEO Kunal Dasgupta

On Subhash Chandra and Zee?s early life

Through the early stages and the difficult years, it was Subhash Chandra‘s vision and dynamism that helped the company get through and create a brand.

The most important thing to note about Zee is that they survived the initial pangs and have become a permanent part of the Indian media landscape. Despite the presence of multinational media companies, they survived the onslaught and have become successful.

On competitive spirit of Chandra:

Chandra was always a strong competitor. There was never any question that Star, Zee and Sony were here to stay. I think that the perception that Zee was up and then down and came back again was only a media creation. In reality these three companies have always been successful.

On media business being promoter-led:

A media company has to be promoter-led and not just be professionally run. There has to be an entrepreneurial spirit. You have to take risks. That is how a media company will thrive. If there is no risk taking appetite, you will stagnate.

Lodestar UM CEO Shashi Sinha

I think Subhash Chandra has done a great job. To have a vision to think through and to have a perspective that would fuel Zee‘s growth.

At that time only Doordarshan was there and they hardly used to sell; you had to stand in queues for slots. So, to create something like this was so magical. As global giants Star and Viacom are there, you need that entrepreneurial mindset to survive and grow. Chandra looked at languages, distribution and all the pieces of the media business. It is not easy to do everything in the beginning when the market is small and there isn?t enough money. But it was a good team and Ashok Kurian helped him at that point of time along with others.

Zee as a bouquet is very good. Chandra has set up a strong distribution network and he has got regional channels. One
channel going up and another going down is a minute detail, but he has consolidated the network very well . You can?t find a
bigger bouquet and they have been ahead of time. Before any other DTH operator came in, Dish TV was launched. They were the first ones to launch regional and set up a channel distribution outfit.

Chandra‘s son Punit Goenka is doing well too and he has a very good understanding of content.

For an Indian group to be so dominant and do so well, it?s a great achievement.

Essel Production head Nitin Keni

Zee?s beginning as a private broadcaster

Zee had a highly creative atmosphere in those early days and, being a new company, was less corporate. It was like ‘Do it first, Understand later‘.

Subhash Chandra was not just involved as chairman but also in every single thing because that was the beginning. He was practically there to give directions and guided us in major things.

That was the time when the whole country was getting liberalised. So I think that was also on his mind: that the Indian economy was opening up and Zee should start looking at the aspirations of the young people and the new society. We wanted Zee to be modern, young and aspirational.

Zee‘s movie production efforts

I was also part of the launch of Zee Cinema in 1995. There were lots of legal issues because there were many claimants to the movie library. So we had to be careful and bought rights directly from film producers.

Since there was a joint venture arrangement between Star and Zee, both of us were acquiring movies and they were pooled together. Zee already had a library of 2000 movies and Star also had acquired certain movies.

After I did my MBA from IIM, I joined NFDC because there were no private broadcasters at that point of time. I was very keen on cinema, so I started to make movies on my own. Zee also funded one of the films, Gadar. Though the movie was a box office hit, Zee never got the kind of returns it should have. Only the satellite rights gave Zee the true value.

In India, movie making is still not as organised as in other countries. Zee was not in film distribution, so in 2005 I tried facilitating that. I came as a consultant since I was running my own company at that time and we tried getting into distribution through a joint venture with Rajshri.

Why Zee did not make much progress in movie production? That is because Zee was focusing more on the television business (it‘s a 30 channel network today); the film business took a backseat. Zee floated a motion pictures arm in between but it did not work since it required a different kind of culture and organisation as compared to television.

On Subhash Chandra the visionary

Chandra dares to dream and he actually converts them into reality. I think he also created a platform for the next generation of media leaders to take the company global.

Chandra has given freedom to his CEOs; he curbs their wings also depending upon how they perform. He won‘t allow them to mess up with the company that he has built over the years.

Although he has passed on the baton to his son, he is very much guiding him and us. He continues to be passionate about media despite venturing into other growth areas like infrastructure.

Independent media consultant Kantaa Advanii

My six years at Zee have been a period of learning. Being a pioneer in the Hindi TV entertainment business in the country, we made our own rules and broke them. I was never faced with a situation where I was told not to try something new. So in that way, it was an extremely encouraging time that I spent at Zee.

I interacted more with Subhash Chandra when i was made head of sales for the entire network. Contrary to ‘rumours‘ at that time of him being an interfering boss, I found that he is a very hands on person and likes to keep track of what is going on in his company. He believed in letting people do their things and was present as a guiding force.

Another commendable thing about Chandra is the fact that he has a very shrewd idea of what might work and what might not. Despite this instinct, he never backed out of a calculated risk. He is a visionary and a part of this is his ability to take chances and face the consequences. In case of a failure, he took it in his stride.

NEW DELHI: Prasar Bharati is striving to bridge the gap between its annual expenditure and revenue amid government pressures to lean less on it for financial support.

While the government has made it clear that it will only fund the capex requirements and expenses towards salaries, the pubcaster has settled on an operational expenditure capped at Rs 20 billion for the fiscal while its income hovers in the region of Rs 16 billion as it competes against private television and radio broadcasters.

So how does Prasar Bharati cut its financial coat to match the cloth that it has? The pubcaster, which has to look after Doordarshan and All India Radio (AIR), is banking on generating additional revenue of Rs 4 billion with aggressive marketing to promote its clutch of channels and radio stations.

The government had last month approved the financial restructuring of Prasar Bharati, stating that from this year the public broadcaster would have to ensure its operating expenses, other than salaries, are met from revenue earnings. The government had agreed to meet all the expenses of Prasar Bharati towards salary and salary-related expenses from its non-plan account for five years from 2012-13 to 2016-17.

Says Prasar Bharati CEO Jawhar Sircar, "After the Union Cabinet decision, Prasar Bharati?s annual operational expenditure would be in the range of Rs 15 billion to 20 billion, whereas the annual revenue currently is around Rs 16 billion. Therefore, we need to generate additional revenue of Rs 3.5 billion to Rs 4 billion and that is where our renewed emphasis on marketing is important."

Prasar Bharati has decided on an aggressive marketing policy to promote the advertisement revenue and viewership/listenership of Doordarshan and AIR that is expected to bring in an additional Rs 4 billion every year.

Rejuvenated by the recent Cabinet decision providing the pubcaster financial relief of Rs 120 billion after the recommendations of a Group of Ministers, Doordarshan and AIR have decided that marketing and revenue would be their two thrust areas. Prasar Bharati has also put special emphasis on different revenue streams and innovative methods for garnering additional income.

With the Cabinet also approving the transfer of numerous properties and infrastructure across the country - radio stations, television kendras, transmitters - to Prasar Bharati, the pubcaster has decided to leverage these new assets to earn more money.

The Prasar Bharati board, thus, unanimously approved Sircar?s proposal to hire professional marketing executives at market salary levels in order to help the public broadcaster come up with innovative revenue generation plans.

Prasar Bharati board unanimously passed a special resolution to thank Information and Broadcasing Minister Ambika Soni and Finance Minister P Chidambaram for the waiver of Rs 120.71 billion of loans, interest thereon and satellite charges that had accumulated over the years.

The waiver will help Prasar Bharati to pay greater attention to other areas of concern, including the free to air direct-to-home DD Direct Plus, technology (including new media), and its priceless archival treasures, according to Prasar Bharati officials.