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.

NEW DELHI: Doordarshan has commenced from today the telecast of ?Manthan?, a weekly series on science and technology in Hindi, being produced by Deutsche Welle.

This is the first series in Hindi by the German television channel and is being telecast at 10.30 am every Saturday with a repeat at midnight on the national channel, DD One. The show will focus on science, technology, the environment and medicine.

The series is the result of a comprehensive partnership agreement signed in late 2011 between DD Director General Tripurari Sharan and DW Director General Erik Bettermann to strengthen bilateral cooperation in the field of television.

?Manthan? is produced by DW?s Hindi team in Bonn and will cover all aspects of science and technology ? with a special focus on the latest developments in Germany and Europe. The show anchor is Isha Bhatia from Chandigarh. In addition to presenting the latest scientific developments, the ?Manthan? team will also report on the different aspects of everyday life in Germany and comment on the sometimes surprising differences between Germany and India.

The programme will initially be for 26 episodes but may be extended if it is found to gain acceptance.

Addressing a press meet, German Ambassador Michael Steiner expressed the hope that this programme will encourage people-to-people understanding, regretting that there was no Indian journalist based in his country.

But he said Germany and India were ?a perfect match? and his country was India?s greatest trading partner in Europe.

Sharan expressed confidence that this was the start of a fruitful relationship and felt Indians needed to go beyond their conceptions of Germany which stood for much more than just the famous automobile brands that Indians were proud to own.

The series would provide value-based education and will go beyond the stereotypical information Indian students get in schools and colleges.

?Manthan? editor-in-chief Ute Schaeffer said media should encourage such exchange of programmes.

DW programming head Asia Pacific Alexander Freund said German radio receives thousands of letters from Indian listeners but this was the first collaboration in TV. He said the liberalisation of the economy in India had made an impact on Germany. He said the website manthan.dw.de will help interactivity.

DW distribution head Anne Hufnagel claimed DW already reaches six million homes in India.

Show anchor Isha Bhatia said the show will also cover subjects outside Germany.

Doordarshan deputy director general Deepa Chandra also addressed the press meet.

Multimedia content from the series will also be available online at DW?s Hindi website, www.dw.de/hindi, as well as being distributed by DW?s online partners.

NEW DELHI: Doordarshan will telecast live the launch of PSLV-C21/SPOT-6/PRIOTERES from Sriharikota on 9 September.

The telecast on the national channel DD One and DD News will be from 9.20 am to 11 am.

India‘s Mission Polor Satellite Launch Vehicle carrying C21, French Satellite SPOT-6 and Japanese Micro Satellite PRIOTERES will be launched in the presence of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh who will be the chief guest.

NEW DELHI: The permission for uplinking or downlinking given to five television channels has lapsed as they failed to operationalise within the stipulated period of one year.

These channels are: Mallemala, S1 Tadka, Just TV Punjabi, Just TV Music, and Ahimsaa.

The Information and Broadcasting Ministry had found 37 channels failed to become operational even after one year of permission. Apart from the five whose licences lapsed, three had requested for extension of time against notice of cancellation, and 27 TV channels had sought extension for operationalising their channels and they have been asked to submit Performance Bank Guarantee. The permission of two channels has been withdrawn at the request of the concerned companies.

Meanwhile, the government has given permission so far to 833 satellite TV channels to uplink or downlink into the country.

According to the government, 681 television channels were operational in the country in April this year, out of a total of 825 television channels which had been permitted by the government as on 19 January 2012.

A total of 116 channels are still within the prescribed limit of one year for operationalisation under the Uplinking/Downlinking Guidelines.

The country had 430 news and current affairs channels as on 17 November last year including 35 channels of the national broadcaster, Doordarshan.

New Delhi: Prasar Bharati, India?s public broadcaster, is putting in place plans to increase its revenues.

Aggressive marketing of advertising slots, putting to use spare infrastructure, bringing about an improvement in content, augmenting DTH services and sharing of towers are among the measures being taken by the broadcaster to bridge the substantial gap between its revenues and expenses, according to sources in the broadcaster.

Prasar Bharati, which operates a group of Doordarshan television channels, has always found its revenues to be much less than its expenses. In 2011-12, its revenues were Rs 14.09 billion, just 48 per cent of its operating cost of Rs 28.90 billion.

Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting S Jagathrakshakan said Prasar Bharati?s revenue generally constituted 40 to 50 per cent of the annual operating cost.

Prasar Bharati?s revenue in 2010-11 was Rs 13.10 billion, 51 per cent of the operating cost of Rs 25.47 billion. In 2009-10, the revenue was Rs 11.76 billion, 43 per cent of the operating cost of Rs 26.828 billion.

The minister said if the government accepts the recommendations on financial restructuring of Prasar Bharati made by a Group of Ministers, it would help the pubcaster to become financially viable.

The ministry has already prepared a cabinet note to bring about financial restructuring of Prasar Bharati that seeks to ensure that all operating expenses are borne from the broadcaster?s own income.

The note is expected to be taken up by the union cabinet for consideration soon after inter-ministerial discussions on it are over.

The note is based on the recommendations of the Group of Ministers Prasar Bharati, which suggested that government non-plan support should be extended for meeting the total expenses on salary and salary-related expenses and augmentation and replacement of capital assets for the five years from 2011-12 to 2015-16.

The GoM had also recommended that accumulated arrears of space segment and spectrum charges up to 31 March 2011 should be waived.

The recommendations of the group of ministers also suggested that all loans extended to the public service broadcaster should be converted into grants-in-aid and interest accrued on the loans should be waived.