New Delhi, Aug 05: The explosion of news and current affairs-related programmes on the small screen has fuelled public broadcaster Doordarshan's desire to float a 24-hour channel.
Finance Minister Jaswant Singh, has in-principle, agreed to enable Rs 85 crore as initial investment for the proposed bilingual (Hindi-English) channel.
Last week, members of the Prasar Bharati Board met Mr Singh, requesting him to sanction about Rs 140 crore to begin its transmission. However, Mr Singh is said to have told the Board to "start with" Rs 85 crore.
Although Doordarshan is prepared to air the 24-hour DD News from September itself, it probably will have to wait till November for North Block to release the committed fund.
Director-General Doordarshan, Dr S Y Quraishi told The Pioneer on Monday, while public broadcasters in all other countries have at least one channel exclusively dedicated to news and current affairs, the Indian television industry was incomplete in this aspect.



"We have so many private news channels in India but as a public broadcaster, it is important that Doordarshan airs its own news channel round-the-clock," he said.



Clearly making a case to enhance Doordarshan's competence on the Indian tube currently flooded by 40-odd private channels serving news and current affairs programmes, Dr Quraishi's point may have been well taken by the Finance Minister.



However, others in Prasar Bharati seem to believe that the decision will benefit the BJP Government more than actually enhancing the image of Doordarshan.



Sources said, from the time Prasar Bharati was made an autonomous corporation by the Government in November 1997, the need for a 24-hour news channel was felt acutely and it was always one of the priorities of the organisation. Thus, with the Assembly and general elections round the corner, the timing of the channel's launch may not be a pure coincidence, they added.



The roll-out model for the proposed channel is based on the fact that Doordarshan has an "advantage of reach" over private broadcasters, with two of its channels (DD National and DD Metro) on both terrestrial and satellite mode.



While DD National will continue to remain in its current state, DD Metro will make way for the 24-hour channel. The decision to replace terrestrial space of DD Metro with DD News may affect the broadcaster's viewership, Prasar Bharati sources said.



DD Metro is the nation's second-biggest channel which Doordarshan's media advisors, J Walter Thompson had proposed to be turned into a "driver channel" for the broadcaster.



The sources added that Thompson had attempted to make the Board realise that DD Metro, if repositioned as "Mast Metro," could in future, provide wholesome entertainment and be transformed into a pay channel.



Despite Thompson's media plan to cull out one channel with revenue-generating potential, the Board decided to phase out DD Metro. Of Doordarshan's total reach (31.6 crores), DD Metro contributes 14 per cent.



According to Dr Quraishi, the public broadcaster's "social responsibility" towards its viewers, would be better realised by providing news and current affairs on terresterial platform, as opposed to entertainment which was anyway being customised by private channels through cable network.



Prasar Bharati sources said that Doordarshan has already spent a substantial amount of public money on an image makeover which includes payments to Thompson for media planning. A part of it was to evolve the repositioning communications campaign for DD Metro which in coming months, will be phased out.