NEW DELHI: Noting that the reach of All India Radio and Doordarshan is the largest among all radio and TV channels yet their advertising revenue is the lowest, a Parliamentary Committee said that the public service broadcasters need to project themselves to the public.
Observing that AIR and DD have not been able to earn revenue as per the projections made during each year of the Eleventh Plan and the growth in their revenue is very slow, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information & Technology has said that the Information & Broadcasting Ministry needs to explore the feasibility to generate revenue from various areas.
Moreover, AIR and DD have to devise their own mechanisms for TRP ratings and publicize the ratings for various programmes generated through their own mechanisms.
Noting that both AIR and DD archives can be a rich source of revenue generation, the Committee has said that there is ‘urgent need’ to explore ways to earn revenue nationally and internationally from these treasures on the part of the Ministry as well as All India Radio and Doordarshan.
The Committee recommended that the details of the archives which can be made commercially available should be put on the website of Doordarshan/All India Radio/Ministry and publicized through various mechanisms which would definitely help in generating more revenue from these precious resources.
The extent of revenue that can be generated through these archives is evident from the fact that the footage for one minute is provided by Doordarshan at the rate of Rs 6000 per minute to people making documentaries for telecast on any channels. The Committee was informed that 100 DVD titles have been handpicked from the archive of Doordarshan and are available for viewing to the public at large.
The Committee feels All India Radio and Doordarshan archives are a precious resource and have great commercial value.
Although there is some growth in the revenue earned by All India Radio and Doordarshan during each year of the Eleventh Plan under the head “Miscellaneous PB”, the Committee noticed that revenue is declining over the years.
During the year 2008-09, the revenue generated was Rs 1.65 billion which declined to Rs 1.04 billion during 2010-11. There was some improvement whereby Rs 1.05 billion had been generated up till February 2012.
The Committee found that the revenue under “Miscellaneous PB” mainly includes collection of Audition fee, Vani Certificate, Inplant Training, License fee from Staff Quarters, Electricity, Water & Transport charges, Interest on Fixed deposits/LTC/TA advance, Sale of obsolete/unserviceable equipment/stores, Sale of CDs, Cassettes, DVDs of archives of both the Directorates, sale of proceeds of old Newspapers, etc. The Committee wants to be apprised about the details of the item-wise declining trend of revenue.
After getting this input, the Committee may recommend evaluation of the revenue trend under each of the segments to find out the sectors where the revenue is continuously declining followed by corrective action on the part of the Ministry and Doordarshan/All India Radio.
The Committee strongly recommends that all these initiatives should be taken immediately by AIR and DD to make these organizations self-sufficient. More such areas from where revenue can be generated should be identified by these organizations.