Cable operators, families to be on TV

Doordarshan has come up with a novel idea to check its sagging popularity among audiences. DD will ask cable operators and their families to participate in their programmes to improve television rating.

Updated on: Oct 20, 2008, 24:02:55 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Doordarshan has come up with a novel idea to check its sagging popularity among audiences. DD will ask cable operators and their families to participate in their programmes to improve television rating.

Not even a single DD programme was ranked among top 10 shows in satellite and television homes in September this year. Even as DD’s national channel, available on terrestrial network, remained highest watched channel in India. Television audience rating companies say DD's audience has gone down dramatically in past few years.

For this, DD officials blame financial incentives given by private channels to cable operators to put their channels on prime band. “We being government organisation cannot indulge in such practices,” said B. S. Lalli, CEO of Prasar Bharati Corporation that manages Doordarshan and All India Radio.

But the falling rating has hurting DD financially. A team of officials were asked to suggest measures to ensure that DD channels are shown on prime band as mandated under Cable Network (Regulation) Act, 1995. The suggestion to have cable operators and their families on reality shows was readily accepted by Prasar Bharati. “Everyone wants to seen on television,” a DD official said.

Roop Sharma of Cable Operators Federation said: “We have been giving free ride to DD channels unlike private channels who pay operators to show their channels. DD should give something in return,” she said.

Cable operators want Prasar Bharati to train operators on technical aspects of broadcasting, Prasar Bharati has agreed to this. But Prasar Bharati wants its officers to get the power to check cable operators not showing DD channels. But, the operators are opposing the idea.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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