Doordarshan to expand international presence to Europe, Africa

New Delhi: State broadcaster Prasar Bharati on Tuesday signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with German public service broadcaster Deutsche Welle, in a bid to expand the reach of Doordarshan India (DD India) into Europe, Central Asia and the Middle East.

The agreement facilitates the availability of Doordarshan programmes on a free-to-air basic package mode, on Hotbird 13B, a popular direct to home (DTH) platform in Europe. This would expand Doordarshan India’s reach to all of Europe, Asia, North Africa and Australia.

“The MoU provided an important platform to position DD content globally. The content for the platform would be created based on the consultation with various stakeholders such as ministry of external affairs, tourism, culture, even finance and will suit the taste of the target audience,” said Jawhar Sircar, chief executive officer, Prasar Bharati.

A committee headed by foreign secretary Sujatha Singh will work on programming strategy for DD India keeping in mind cultural and other sensitivities in countries that would receive Doordarshan’s transmission. “The content so far will focus on news and current affairs mixed with entertainment. These will be the currency to roll out,” said Sircar.

Prasar Bharati has allocated a budget of Rs3 crore for the production of programmes to be broadcast in these countries. “However we would also need the other ministries to pool in their resources/content for quality programming for the viewership abroad,” added Sircar.

Prasar Bharati paid Rs90 lakh to Deutsche Welle for this distribution tieup.

Hotbird 13B reaches 120 million homes in Europe, Northern Africa and Middle East, with 1543 television channels. BBC, CNN, Sky News, Bloomberg TV and Al Jazeera, are some of the popular English channels available on this platform, among others.

Globally, Doordarshan is broadcast in 37 countries. However the viewership is negligible, said Sircar.

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.