All Entries Tagged With: "Prasar Bharati"
I&B gets Parliamentary Committee rap on DD’s DTH expansion issue
NEW DELHI: A Parliamentary Committee has criticised the Information and Broadcasting Ministry for not doing adequate preparatory work before embarking upon schemes to increase the capacity of Doordarshan’s free-to-air direct-to-home platform DD Direct Plus. Doordarshan’s DTH platform at present has capacity of 59 Standard Definition (SD) TV channels. A plan scheme for upgradation of Doordarshan’s DTH Platform to 97 TV channels was approved by the Government in August 2010. Prasar Bharati Board later approved further expansion of Doordarshan’s DTH platform to 150 TV channels. An additional »»»
DD’s DTH far from target, to offer 75 channels by year-end
NEW DELHI: The number of channels on Doordarshan’s direct-to-home platform DD Direct Plus will go up from 59 to 75 channels by the end of the current year. This was stated by Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting S Jagathrakshkan, amid contradictory figures given by both Prasar Bharati and the Ministry over the past year. Prasar Bharati had on 7 June last year cleared the expansion of the country’s only free-to-air (FTA) TV platform to 200 channels by the end of the 2011 and even said the clearance of the detailed proposal for e-auction of the channels for the platform was expected »»»
DD responds to Mail Today report, defends its DTH ‘decision’
Prasar Bharati (PB) has clarified that the Mail Today story – ‘Scam stink as DD to hire DTH it could have bought’ published on Monday – was “factually incorrect, conjectural, malicious and defamatory”. PB board officer on special duty (OSD), Dhiranjan Malvey said in his written rebuttal that the broadcaster decided to hire facilities for increasing the capacity of Doordarshan’s DTH platform to 150 channels as it would not be possible to procure equipment and make it functional within a time-frame. The PB official said under the 11th five-year plan, the »»»
Scam hits Doordarshan’s direct-to-home service expansion plan
After the disgraceful exit of former Prasar Bharati CEO B. S. Lalli over hiring of equipment during the Commonwealth Games (CWG), another outsourcing scam appears to be brewing in the corridors of Mandi House. The Prasar Bharati board, under its officiating CEO Rajiv Takru, has allegedly pushed through a proposal that violates a decision of the Union cabinet on the expansion plan for Doordarshan’s direct-to-home (DTH) service. The 11-member Prasar Bharati board gave a go-ahead to the proposal on May 13 this year to outsource the entire operation to private players despite the government allocating »»»
Prasar Bharati to bid out DTH operations to private players
New Delhi: In what would be a first for a public service broadcaster anywhere in the world, Prasar Bharati is set to outsource the operational and technical management of its free-to-air direct-to-home (DTH) service DD Direct+ to private DTH operators like Dish TV, Tata Sky and others based on a tendering process. Sources said Doordarshan will float a request for proposal (RFP) this week which will invite eligible private DTH and teleport operators to take over the operational command and control of DD Direct+ for the next five years for a fixed monthly fee. The move, according to DD officials, »»»
Tdsat leaves DD’s DTH to decide on channels to carry
NEW DELHI: The Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal (Tdsat) has said Prasar Bharati is ‘best equipped’ to decide which channel should form part of its DTH bouquet so as to attract viewers and at the same time discharge its duties under Section 12 of the Prasar Bharati Act. This right of Prasar Bharati cannot be defeated for the petty commercial gains of any channels, Tdsat said, disposing off two similar petitions. Justice SB Sinha, Chairperson, and members GD Gaiha and PK Rastogi also said that it was for Prasar Bharati to take a decision as to which channel is to be carried »»»
Prasar Bharti conducts e-auction to award slots to private channels
Prasar Bharti conducted an e-auction to award slots to private channels on its Direct-to-home (DTH) serviceDD Direct Plus on Thursday. The public broadcaster expects to earn more than Rs 46 crore as revenues from this process. “Through the auction, 21 successful bids have been received ranging from Rs 2.17 crore to Rs 2.25 crore. All 21 vacant slots on DD’sDTH platform have been auctioned through this e-auction process,” it said in a statement. The minimum bid amount for the auction was fixed at Rs 1.5 crore. Prior to this e-auction process, Prasar Bharti was earning Rs.80 lakhs »»»
