Apathetic and short-sighted

It’s time India’s public broadcaster Doordarshan woke up from its slumber

Akash Bisht Delhi

Controversy and Prasar Bharti  go hand in hand and the two are in the news again. In its latest report, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India has castigated Prasar Bharti for non-judicious expenditure, unused equipment and undue monetary concessions to a TV producer. CAG observed that the national telecaster Doordarshan (DD) spent Rs 436 million of the government’s money on procuring the equipment which lies unused till today. It accused Prasar Bharti for giving “undue concessions” to the producer of TV serial Shaktiman, and pulled it up for  failing to “appoint operational and maintenance staff for nine low power transmission systems” and “premature” procurement of equipments. Today, when private operators are cashing in on the immense potential of the Indian viewer market, DD continues to putrefy in the bureaucratic muddlemaze, hijacked by babus with inflated egos but no sense of running a channel. 

In past numerous reports have criticised DD for the way it functions but their suggestions have not been heeded. “DD behaves just like any other government organisation and does not care much about these losses. Many such reports have criticised DD in the past few years but DD has continuously ignored these reports,” recalls Shiv Kumar Sharma, former Director General, Doordarshan. DD has often been hailed as an ailing organisation that has failed to revive itself to attain financial viability to meet market challenges.

One grave area of concern for DD is the recovery process of its outstanding dues from producers. This amount has sky rocketed to Rs 29,68,792,318. Many eminent names from the television industry: BAG Films, Balaji Telefilms, Film City, Film Craft, Lintas, McCann Erickson, Mudra Communications, among others feature in the defaulters list of DD. Sharma explains, “DD would have been commercially viable if they would have collected all the outstanding dues but there is hardly anything that is being done.” Certain government departments are also among defaulters and do not adhere to their commitment. Hence, DD keeps losing revenue and finds difficult to invest in high quality programmes such as those that are being aired by private operators.

DD claims that it possesses the best of machinery and studios available but its programmes prove otherwise. “The problem is the time period involved in acquisition of these machines because by the time they reach DD they become outdated. Once acquired it again takes them few years to start functioning,” explainsclarifies Sharma. According to the CAG report, DD has failed to commission studios set up at six stations between March 2001 and March 2005 at a cost of Rs 22.55 crore even 12 to 48 months after completion. They were set up at Patiala, Kozhikode, Madurai, Warangal, Coimbatore and Rajouri. Navin Kumar, Director General, Doordarshan, reports “There have been no recruitments in the last 10 years,” as CAG also spotted that DD failed to appoint operational and maintenance staff for nine low-power TV transmission systems built between March 2002 and September 2004 which led to a loss of Rs 6.74 crore.  This might very well contribute to the reason that DD lacks passion, dedication and has reached a stage of stagnation where it continuously fails to perform. Sharma insists “The workforce of DD just compares its salaries with private channels but doesn’t admire their professionalism.”

Proficiency has helped private channels attract advertisers and garner higher revenues. On the contrary, DD is considered hard to deal with because of its habit of changing its rules and regulations frequently. This attitude of DD has made producers and advertisers accuse it of being unprofessional and seldom in touch with reality. DD is like most public sector enterprises, with mounting losses it remains undervalued and always under threat of policy changes, and is entirely dependent on the government for its survival. Just as shareholders evade the public sector at the very indication of probable changes in policies, television software companies, advertisers and producers avoid DD. Some producers believe that DD needs to change with the times and needs to be more business-friendly to attract revenues.

Besides this, DD has also not paid any attention to promotion and publicity which assist many private companies in creating awareness and generating huge revenues. DD failed to realise the immense potential of these factors which have revolutionised the TV industry. “Not much attention has been given to these segments but we need to work on them to be at par with private operators, who spend a considerable amount of money on these departments,” agrees Kumar.

For 47 years DD had relied on the private firms to handle its marketing department which had often advised them against the non-saleability of their commissioned programmes. Now it has its own marketing team. And the result is for all to see.  Recently when DD made a programme on the works of the Hindi writer Munshi Premchand with a Rs 1.5 crore budget, it was in for a surprise. The very first episode generated them revenues of Rs 6 crore. “This gives you a clear picture of how good this decision turned out for us,” explains Kumar.  But it would be too early to celebrate because the real test of the department lies in remaining untouched by the weariness and incompetence of DD.

Add to this the continuous confrontation within the various departments of DD, especially engineering, programming and administration. They all have been accused of interfering in each others matters. “DD follows government norms and doesn’t follow the policy of hire and fire which private operators do, but if given that chance it could get rid of the extra unwanted baggage which it has been carrying for so many years,” believes Manish Desai, Manager, Public Relations, Prasar Bharti.

Over the years employees have realised that since DD is a public broadcaster it will always have the support of the government, no matter what happens to the organisation. This attitude is visible even in the programmes of the DD. The programmes lack creativity, freshness and are packaged in a stale weary format. “DD has not been able to move with time and is still living in a different era. It is broadcasting programmes that are technically very similar to what they broadcast in the early 1990s,” observes Satyaki Sinha, an employee with a transnational concern. Today there are many private channels that broadcast educational and socially relevant programmes but these programmes have the potential of attracting viewer’s attention. Sinha points out, “History Channel and National Geographic show many informative programmes that are socially relevant and are far ahead in technology.”

Thus, to renovate itself DD needs to wake up from its slumber, establish and preserve broadcasting in the public interest keeping in mind the uphill task of financial sustainability. DD has to figure out how it needs to compete with private channels and also perform its role as a public service broadcaster. It needs to shed its “babu culture” and start being proactive and dynamic to meet the challenges that are being offered by the market. But to achieve all this, DD requires freedom from the ministry and bureaucracy in its decision-making and for any change in the fortunes of DD, first of all, the government also has to chalk out its priorities and make necessary changes.