MUMBAI: Olympics takes first priority over cricket as pubcaster Doordarshan decides to give the upcoming India-Sri Lanka series a miss.

DD declined to telecast the bilateral series which coincides with the London Olympics that will see the largest ever Indian contingent taking part in the world?s biggest sporting event.
?We approached Doordarshan with a bid for the India-Sri Lanka series but they have refused since they will be focusing on the London Olympics,? Zeel chief sales officer Ashish Sehgal tells Indiantelevision.com. The Sri Lanka cricket series falls under the mandatory sharing of telecast rights provision under which private sports broadcasters will have to give the live feed to DD.

With DD out of the fray, the bilateral series involving five ODIs and lone Twenty20 match will be televised exclusively by Ten Cricket, the cricket dedicated channel from Zee.

The India-Sri Lanka series, which will be played from 21 July to 7 August, will clash with the London Olympics starting from 27 July and closing on 12 August.

Zee is looking at an advertising revenue of Rs 800 million from the series. Ten Cricket, the official broadcast rights holder for cricket in Sri Lanka, has roped in five broadcast sponsors. Hero MotoCorp is the presenting sponsor while talks are on with a telecom operator to take the other presenting sponsorship slot.

The broadcaster has roped in Royal Seagram, Lenovo, Reliance Netconnect, and Manipal University as associate sponsors. Besides the official sponsors, there are 20 other advertisers who have bought airtime on the property.

?We have got good response from advertisers. The fact that it?s a short series involving ODI and T20 format of the game and will be telecast only on Ten Cricket is working in our favour,? Sehgal says.

Hindi general entertainment channels like Star Plus and Colors have also shown interest in buying airtime to promote their shows, Sehgal adds.

The channel has got three more on-ground associate sponsors in addition to Royal Stag Cricket Gear which includes Hero MotoCorp, Zuari Cement and Renault. Handset manufacturer Micromax is the title sponsor of the series. Sources say Micromax has paid Rs 50-60 million to take the title sponsorship.

One India. One Jersey. marketing campaign

Ten Cricket?s overall marketing spends on promoting the series will be around Rs 55-60 million, including promotions on network channels.

The sportscaster is giving the series an aggressive marketing push through its One India. One Jersey. marketing campaign.

The campaign celebrates the fact that the India team is coming together after a long gap through a series of four TVC based on real life experiences.

The creative idea showcases how cricket unites people from various walks of life despite all the differences that exist. It will be driven primarily through television promos and digital initiatives.

?The campaign is based on various contradictions in life and how we as a society are divided on various things but when it comes to cricket we are all one so it could be politicians from two opposition political parties with different views but they have same views when it comes to cricket (Indian team),? Ten Sports CEO Atul Pande says.

Pande believes that the campaign needed to have a strong theme since there was lot of negativity around the Indian team due to back-to-back defeats against England and Australia.

?We are primarily focusing on television particularly News channels because this property has got a male skew. We are also looking to reach out to female viewers through channels like TLC and lifestyle channels. Then we have our network channels to drive it we are topping this with a digital campaign,? he avers.

NEW DELHI: Doordarshan earned just Rs 7.94 billion, a little over half the projection of Rs 12 billion, during 2011-12 through commercial means.

While admitting Doordarshan had failed to meet its projected target in any of the years of the Eleventh Plan, Prasar Bharati sources told indiantelevision.com that the projection for 2012-13 had provisionally been kept at Rs 13 billion.

Doordarshan earned Rs 9.44 billion against a projection of Rs 12.37 billion through commercial means in 2010-11.

The commercial revenue has been falling short of the target for the other three years of the 11th Plan as well. While actual revenues in 2007-08 stood at Rs 7.20 billion, the projection was that DD would achieve Rs 9.47 billion. Similarly, in 2008-09 the commercial revenue was Rs 7.35 billion (projection Rs 10.84 billion. The following year was no different with DD earning Rs 8.30 billion against a target of Rs 9.47 billion.

The sources sought to argue that as Prasar Bharati was a public service broadcaster, it cannot be guided purely by commercial motives and revenue generation is not its main objective.

Measures being taken to increase revenues, the sources said, include aggressive marketing, putting into best use the spare infrastructure available with Prasar Bharati, content improvement, augmenting DTH services, and sharing of towers etc.

It was claimed that DD had witnessed a gradual growth of revenue over the years. It reaches to the people living in far flung and remotest part of the country carrying the programmes and schemes being implemented by the Government for the welfare of the community.

During the Eleventh Plan, the total revenue earned by AIR and Doordarshan came to Rs 57.68 billion. The total expenditure met out of Internal and Extra Budgetary Resources came to Rs 52.90 billion. Thus there was a gap of Rs 4.78 billion between the revenue earned and expenditure met out of IEBR.

Asked by the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology whether under utilised outlay of IEBR is surrendered, the Information and Broadcasting Ministry said all the residual funds out of internal revenue of Prasar Bharati are kept in its IEBR kitty as envisaged under sections 18 and 19 of Prasar Bharati Act and used for meeting its requirement on account of special maintenance of building and other capital assets and to bridge the budget gap.

Moreover, Prasar Bharati used to have budget cushion of about Rs three to five billion to meet contingencies. There is no provision in the Prasar Bharati Act 1990 to the effect that all the unspent amount of IEBR should be surrendered to the Government.

In a recent report, the Parliamentary Committee said DD should explore all the possibilities of revenue generation so as to meet the targets of projections made for planned schemes out of IEBR.

Besides, Doordarshan has to prepare for meeting the devised parameters of sharing the expenditure as per the formula suggested by the Group of Ministers, the Committee noted.

The Committee observed huge gaps between the total IEBR of Prasar Bharati and the expenditure met out of IEBR during each year of the Eleventh Plan. During 2010-11, the expenditure met was Rs 11.13 billion out of Rs 29.40 billion of IEBR.

The Committee wanted to be apprised about the total IEBR kitty of Prasar Bharati. The Committee also wanted to be apprised as to how the IEBR savings are maintained meaning thereby whether the amount is kept in accounts of banks etc. In that case, it said the amount generated through interest may also to be communicated to the Committee so as to understand the concept of IEBR kitty.

NEW DELHI: Four schemes finalised during the Eleventh Plan by the Information and Broadcasting Ministry have now been shifted to the 12th Plan because of tardy progress in getting approvals of the Planning Commission.

Noting that the Ministry has failed to learn lessons from the past, the Parliamentary Standing Committee for Information Technology has exhorted the Ministry to look into this and ensure that the implementation of the schemes start during the first year itself or in the earlier part of the year so that the allocations earmarked for the year 2012-13 are utilised.

The schemes are setting up of a Global Film School; setting up of a National Centre of Excellence for Animation, Gaming and Special Effects; National Film Heritage Mission under Film Sector; and an International Channel under Doordarshan, which could not be formally approved during the long period of five years.

The plan for upgrading the Film and Television Institute of India into a Global Film School had been finalised with comprehensive rationalisation and restructuring but it will now be included in the umbrella scheme of Infrastructure Development programme relating to Film Sector in the 12th Plan.

The National Centre of Excellence for Animation, Gaming and Special Effects and the Doordarshan International channel are now new schemes under the 12th Plan, while the National Film Heritage Mission is part of the Twelfth Plan new scheme as a Special Mission.

When asked about timeline chalked out for early approval and implementation of these Schemes, the Ministry has replied that the approval of new schemes involves a four stage appraisal-cum-approval process: in-principle approval; preparation of Detailed Project Reports (DPRs) and preparation of EFC /SFC memos; appraisal of SFC / EFC memos; and approval by the competent authority.

NEW DELHI: Although Doordarshan?s DD Urdu commenced in November 2007 and over 1000 proposals for new programmes have been submitted in two batches by around 800 producers since 2009, the channel is only beaming repeat programmes or those taken from DD Kashir for more than three years.

However, this claim by private disillusioned producers was contested by Doordarshan Deputy Director General Ashok Jailkhani, who told indiantelevision.com that DD Urdu was showing several news programmes. He also felt there was nothing wrong in taking programmes from DD Urdu.

Meanwhile, he also said it was erroneous to say that no steps had been taken on the 1069 proposals, adding that some meetings of select committees had been held and the proposals were ?under review?.

According to the producers, proposals for commissioning programmes had been invited twice, and each proposal had to be accompanied with a processing fee of Rs 25,000.

Brief proposals were invited up to 21 August 2009, wherein approximately 639 proposals were received. Presentations for the same were conducted from September 2010 to November 2010 before a duly (single) constituted committee.

The second Commissioning was notified without concluding the earlier exercise by making minor modification in the brief, but without notifying any reasons for this action.

The proposals were invited up to 1 October 2010 and up to 430 fresh proposals were submitted. The presentations for the same were conducted from 26 December 2011 to 23 February 2012 before three Committees comprising three members each.

The producers claim that the action by the public broadcaster has not only harmed the interests of Urdu, but harmed the image of the broadcaster itself.

They said each of the producers spent Rs 200,000 to Rs 5000 each and had undergone several hardships. Apart from the processing fee of Rs 25,000 for each proposal, the producers had spent money on reputed writers, directors and language experts, expenses were made during the presentations including air/rail travel, hotel and local conveyance for the experts were undertaken twice, money was paid for acquiring of rights of novels /published works; re-payment of the same to maintain the status quo so that the proposal still remains viable; and professional fees (although token) were paid to the creative team to remain with the project, apart from payments to language experts.

The channel totally banked on acquisition programmes which were invited in the years 2005, 2006 and 2007 respectively.

Prasar Bharti sources told Indiantelevision.com that the total outlay of Rs 2.5 billion at the rate of Rs 500 million per year had been projected for the channel during the 12th plan, which is subject to approval of the planning commission.

The formal announcement about DD Urdu came on 15 August 2006. The language channel has been on air for 24 hours from 14 November 2007. The channel?s mandate was to encapsulate heritage, culture, literature, information, education and societal issues specific to the target audience.

The theme that predominantly runs through the transmission relates to modernising educational and social outlook of the target audience, document and show comparative study of societies in the South-Asian neighbourhood to draw lines of demarcation between democratic and non-democratic social structures, popularising science, technology, IT and demystifying science, conserving literary and cultural traditions identified with Urdu, and portrayal of Urdu as one of the modern Indian languages.

NEW DELHI: Doordarshan has no plans of any new transmitters in the current year, but will complete digitisation of 39 studios by March 2013.

Doordarshan presently covers 92 per cent population and 81 per cent area through 1415 transmitters.

The pubcaster will also complete ten earth station projects, two high power transmitter projects, 56 automode low power transmitters, and one very low power transmitter. Two studio projects were completed in 2011-12.

All areas not reached terrestrially including the north east are sought to be reached by Doordarshan?s free-to-air direct-to-home service DD Direct Plus, Prasar Bharati sources told indiantelevision.com.

Meanwhile, the Parliamentary Standing Committee for Information Technology has flayed the Ministry for the under-utilisation of funds by Doordarshan.

In its explanation, the Ministry told the Committee that the Expenditure under Capital Plan of Doordarshan during 2011-12 till February 2012 was Rs 884.6 million against the revised estimates of 2011-12 of Rs 1.5751 billion and the likely expenditure up to March 2012 under Capital Plan of Doordarshan was around Rs 1.37 billion.

Delay in procurement/Supply of equipment and delay in Building/Tower works at some places were the main reasons given for the under-utilisation. The Actual Expenditure during the year 2009-10 was Rs 901.6 million and during the year 2010-11 was Rs 681 million under Capital Plan of Doordarshan.

Asked about efforts being made for full utilisation of funds and the initiatives being taken by the Ministry, it was stated that a High level Committee under the chairmanship of CEO, Prasar Bharati, has been constituted for project monitoring and implementation. This committee is regularly monitoring the progress of the schemes and taking corrective action, wherever required.

A three Member special empowered Committee on finance examines and resolves all issues related to finance.

The sanctioning power of DG has been restored to Rs 200 million.

The time schedule for procurement and all other major activities of a project have been drawn and the progress is being monitored as per the schedule.

Regular review meetings at Zonal offices and in Civil Construction Wing are being held to review the implementation of the projects.