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With a positive impact on lives, the country has been blessed by first a green revolution, then a white revolution and then a telecom revolution. The fourth revolution that one can be truly proud of is the ‘Direct To Home’ (DTH) service of Prasar Bharati, which was inaugurated by the Hon’ble Prime Minister on December 16, 2004. For Prasar Bharati it is a revolution as well as a dream come true.
Imagine a Malayalam speaking person being able to watch his favourite Malayalam channel of Doordarshan (DD) in any part of the country, say Leh, at any time of the day or night on continuous basis without having to pay any recurring charges for such a kind of a service. Language channels of DD are not necessarily serviced adequately even in cable homes due to the limited capacity of various cable operators and due to limited population in a given geographical area, of various major linguistic groups. For example, even though there may be a good number of Punjabi speaking people in Hyderabad, but due to their small numbers and scattered living, no cable operator in Hyderabad would be willing to transmit even DD Punjabi, not to speak of other private Punjabi channels. Now, with the DTH of Doordarshan, any Punjabi speaking person who wishes to watch DD Punjabi can watch the same from any corner of the country without any medium like cable operator. This is true of every other language group like Assamese, Telugu, Tamil – a total of eleven language channels shown by DD 24 hours a day. Now, with the launch of Doordarshan’s DTH the reach of every language channel of DD has become truly national.
Similarly, DD National, DD News, DD Sports, DD India and DD Bharati, which are truly national in character, are also available all over the country without a cable operator. Besides, two newly launched channels of Doordarshan – DD Lok Sabha and DD Rajya Sabha are also available on the platform.
All India Radio’s(AIR) dream was that it should reach every home in the country. While 99 per cent of the population has been reached by AIR through its 215 stations spread all over the country, the listener still gets only local and regional channels. Today with DTH, the listener would get in a digital mode, through the medium of television (TV) i.e., local/regional channel/Vividh Bharati/the nearest FM metro station, apart from nine other language channels of AIR currently. A pleasant fall out of this DTH delivery of radio is that even if locally, for example, one wishes to hear AIR, Jalandhar through radio, it would be in Medium Wave, whereas through DTH it would be in digital mode, which is far superior to medium wave signal. Getting radio on TV sets heralds the beginning of digital convergence. Currently 12 language channels of AIR are on DTH platform on a 24 hours basis. The number of radio channels would go up to 30 to include many more languages and dialects.
In the cable dry areas, a viewer of television would now be able to watch, again without any recurring costs, channels like BBC, Aaj Tak, Headlines Today, Sun TV, ETV Marathi and a host of other 13 popular channels , thus opening up an entertainment revolution for the common man. A viewer who hitherto was able to get only one channel free of cost would get at one go 33 channels with a one time investment of Rs. 100 per channel at present.
The chances are that the number of channels would go up to 100 in due course without any further investment. Furthermore, owners of Black & White TV sets, whose channel capacity is limited to 10-12, would get automatically upgraded to 33 channels as of now with the installation of DTH Set Top Box .
Out of the 202 million households in our country only 90 million households have access to TV . This number, however, is larger than the number of telephone connections,that means how popular television is with all households in the country. Amongst 112 million households where there is no television, there are at least 20 million households which do not have a terrestrial television signal available to them. Therefore these 20 million households would, subject to their purchasing power, are likely to go for the DTH with a gusto. Even if 50 per cent of them, on the basis of the national average households with TV, were to take TV connection, they would definitely like to go for DTH. In fact, with an additional financial investment cost of about Rs. 3000, in addition to the cost of the TV set, they would be suddenly in a position to see 30 channels and listen to 12 radio channels as against an earlier scenario where they got nothing of television and may be one local radio channel.
Similarly, amongst the 90 million households with TV, 50 per cent of them are cable dry i.e. to say 45 million are having no access to cable and out of this 45 million households receiving only the terrestrial signal of Doordarshan, 30 million are in the rural areas. Therefore, it is difficult at this stage even to comprehend the silent revolution that would be brought about in the rural side of the country to empower people with information and entertainment that is badly needed to make better informed decisions. The primary focus of Doordarshan’s DTH is to bridge the gap in the cable dry homes and the hitherto uncovered areas.
The self-employment potential of this project for younger people in the villages to sell the dishes and Set Top Boxes at every nook and corner of the country is stupendous. The district rural development agencies can take the lead to provide such self employment opportunities for the sale of the Set Top Boxes and dishes. For the purpose, even banks can provide an initial investment cost on installment basis. Besides, TV manufacturers could incorporate the Set Top Boxes into the TV itself to make their sales more aggressive in the rural areas.
Already another 40 channels which are free to air beaming into the country are in the waitlist to join Doordarshan’s DTH platform. There is no doubt that those who are on the World Space platform would be more than willing to join once the opportunities are opened up on that front too. The potential of this service is awesome and without any doubt it would be taken by the people with lots of enthusiasm.
While naturally promoting national integration by mirroring the cultural diversity of the nation in every home with a TV, this service also enables to listen to radio through television. Thus the service is totally a Public Broadcaster’s vision for a more united India and a vibrant democracy. (PIB Features)
*PIB
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