Art & Entertainment

Big Brother’s Fadeout

NRS’ latest survey confirms Doordarshan is losing its metro audiences to satellite channels

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Big Brother’s Fadeout
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Upper and middle income urban audiences nationwide-dubbed as ‘AB’ viewers-prefer Zee TV and Sony Entertainment to DD2/ Metro. In Mumbai, these two private channels have overtaken both DD1 and DD2 in the AB segment. Likewise, in Chennai, Hyderabad and Bangalore, DD has lost out to regional channels like Sun, Udaya and Eenadu. In fact, in the southern metros, DD’s way behind even in terms of general viewership.

Small wonder its revenues have plummeted from Rs 570 crore in ‘96-97 to Rs 395 crore in ‘98-99, at a time when the broadcasting industry is growing at 25 per cent a year. This, as compared to Zee’s annual revenue of Rs 325 crore, Sony’s Rs 275 crore and Sun’s Rs 170 crore-smaller channels which lack DD’s phenomenal urban and rural reach.

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The real catch for DD is DD2, its premium entertainment channel which has steadily been losing business. Its top clients-Pepsi, Coke, Nestle, Cadbury and Hindustan Lever-have gradually been opting out. Top producers of entertainment programmes are also pulling out because the channel is no longer commercially viable. "If we continue like this, DD2 will go the way of DD3, which had to be shut down," says a senior Prasar Bharati official.

Information and broadcasting minister Arun Jaitley, who has stressed the need for professionalism since the day he took over, acknowledges the problem: "This is precisely what the group of experts set up under the Prasar Bharati board has been asked to examine." The fact that the network lacks advertising and marketing professionals is a serious drawback, he admits.

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As far as DD1 is concerned, he’s quite clear that its role as public service broadcaster will need the government’s budgetary support-to the tune of Rs 1,400 crore a year-in the foreseeable future. He agrees, however, that there’s no clear notion of how exactly DD1 should discharge its role. For instance, how much entertainment should it carry? "DD1’s structure, funding, quality of programming and channel identity are areas to be considered," says Jaitley.

He broadly accepts the ‘98 study by Carat India for Prasar Bharati on DD2, which pointed out that the channel was getting marginalised. It had become an air-time vendor instead of a broadcaster and a "meal ticket for advertisers, producers and allied touts".

Viewers were alienated by the overdose of programmes of the same genre. Cross-channel cannibalisation (DD1 and DD2 competing instead of working in tandem) meant that neither channel had a distinctive identity. Advertisers complained of irrational advertising rates which had no correlation with viewership, and the lack of innovative pricing. For instance, DD1 was underpriced and DD2 overpriced.

Prasar Bharati CEO R.R. Shah differs from Jaitley in that he doesn’t accept the NRS ‘99 findings: "What is the authenticity of this survey? Clubbing people in the ‘AB’ segment is a subjective exercise. If they had covered 200 urban centres instead of just nine, the picture would have been different." (NRS covered 14 metros and 15 states as well as the northeast.)

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He might not agree with the figures but admits that "this kind of analysis has given advertisers the impression that DD does not matter to the affluent". DD has been hurting as a result. "Advertisers’ perceptions have to be radically changed, after they have been fed on such statistical constructs," he says.

Shah plans to make his pitch to the apex body of advertisers, AAAI, and also speak with them individually: "Why would BCCI have given us cricket telecast rights for five years if we didn’t have viewership? Did you know that on November 6 and 7, our election telecast had the maximum viewership?"

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The CEO, who took over just a few months ago, hopes to reverse the 20- 25 per cent annual decline in DD’s revenues, largely as a result of sports programming. He’s already relaunched DD2 and increased audience-share-mainly due to the channel becoming a 24-hour service- and marginally improved transmission. Ratings haven’t gone up, except in the prime-time 8 to 8.30 pm slot, where Shah has introduced new programming (the popular soap Nyaya, for instance).

He’s also cut down on racketeering by virtually discontinuing commissioning of programmes. "We’ll commission only select programmes. We’re hoping to do A Suitable Boy-that’s the kind of property we’d like to own." Defaulters are being forced to pay up, no advances are being given and current affairs producers find their earnings per episode slashed from Rs 1.25 lakh to Rs 85,000.

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Prasar Bharati’s main problems-overstaffing, underutilised infrastructure and irrational investments in expanding the terrestrial network-haven’t been tackled by the board. For instance, Madhya Pradesh boasts no less than six TV studios in different urban centres, four of which are unused despite a 350-strong staff at the DD Kendra. Most low-powered transmitters (LPTS), meant to function all day long, close down after six hours. And often, the areas covered by a high-powered transmitter are also serviced by LPTS-redundant investment, simply to make the local MP look good.
Clearly, new broom Jaitley has an Augean stable to tackle.

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