TeaHe recently served in the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting Amendment Policy Guidelines for Uplinking/Downlinking of Satellite Television Channels in India. Among other things, the new guidelines require private satellite television channels to devote 30 minutes of programming to socially relevant content. The legal provision is intriguing in a scenario where four crore households watch TV content on Doordarshan Free Dish, Prasar Bharati’s distribution network, and all TV subscribers receive around 36 Doordarshan channels.
DD was the only TV content available to citizens since 1965, before the entry of private television in India. India’s longest running TV program ‘Krishi Darshan’ first aired in 1967, and the agricultural information show has aired over 16,000 episodes. Agriculture and rural development is a subject listed in section 12 of Prasar Bharati Act, 1990, which outlines the main objectives of public broadcasting. This begs the question: why did the central government impose a new public interest obligation on private broadcasters when it could have doubled down on public broadcasting instead?
lack of financial autonomy
Public service broadcasters are expected to maintain high standards of editorial ethics and quality, produce socially relevant content, and compete with commercial broadcasters. All DD Free Dish Channels Collectively clock Watch-time of over 94 million hours and reach 680 million viewers nationwide in 2021. DD News remains the most trusted news source in India according to Survey Organized by the Center for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) in 2022. Clearly, domestic access and public trust are not the problem. The public broadcaster’s lack of financial autonomy and inability to produce relevant content, however, has been a long-standing concern.
Prasar Bharati is dependent on the government for funding and does not have the resources to produce quality content. In FY18-1961 percent of the broadcaster’s revenue came from government grants and subsidies. In the same year, Prasar Bharati spent only nine per cent on programming and 79 per cent on engineering and administrative costs. In 2014, the expert group report On Prasar Bharati-Government Relations it was observed that 44.4 per cent of DD’s employees work on engineering aspects and 36.9 per cent on administrative support. Only 18.7 percent of employees worked on the core function of content production.
Other public broadcasters have financial autonomy and have produced award-winning content. British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) Yield £3.79 billion (76 per cent of their revenue) through license fee in 2016-17. BBC collected License fee from anyone watching live TV programs on TV channels in the UK. It allows broadcasters to invest in TV, radio and online content. BBC co-produces award winning films dog power (2021), which won the 2021 Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture – Drama.
‘Hallyu’, or a wave of global fanfare for Korean culture, started with a TV drama series called winter Sonata (2003), produced by the Korean Broadcasting System (KBS), the public broadcaster of South Korea. kbs Yield 49 percent of its revenue in 2019 through membership fees and 18.7 percent from commercial advertising sales. In 2012, Japan’s public broadcaster Nippon Hoso Kyokai (NHK), which also charge receive an annual fee, raised International Emmy in the News category for a series of reports on the Great East Japan Earthquake.
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mechanism to generate revenue
India due to its socio-economic profile cannot charge high membership fees from the subscribers, but the central government can generate a fund by charging a minimum fee from its subscribers. 18.4 crores (As on March 2021) TV subscriber families. A license fee of Rs 5 per month for Prasar Bharati translates to Rs 92 crore per month and Rs 1,104 crore as revenue. It is sufficient for the public broadcaster to create or commission content on social issues and entertainment programmes.
Pay TV subscribers in India already pay Rs 130 per month to TV distributors for basic channel connection, Rs 80 as connection cost and Rs 50 as miscellaneous cost to improve quality of service. The government does not have an accountability mechanism to ensure that distributors spend it on improving service quality, as also highlighted in a recent report. report good, Instead the government should allocate a part of the mandatory subscription fee to Prasar Bharati for content creation.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, D.D. played An important role in the dissemination of social messages and news. Broadcasting stations remained operational with 24-hour news services as well as educational and entertainment programs. Furthermore, DD channels reach every TV household in India, unlike private broadcaster channels. A public broadcaster is clearly well suited to disseminate high-impact content on socially relevant topics if it has the financial resources and autonomy to do so. Creating a self-sustaining revenue model is important and global practices show that subscription fees are the best way forward. The government should consider this approach as an alternative to placing public service broadcasting requirements on private broadcasters.
Varun Ramdas is a Senior Associate at Koan Advisory. he tweets @ramdas_varun. Thoughts are personal.
This article is part of ThePrint-Koan advisory series that analyzes emerging policies, laws and regulations in India’s technology sector. read all articles Here,
(Edited by Prashant)