Prasar Bharati, country’s Public Service Broadcaster, signed an MoU with Deutsche Welle (DW), Germany’s Public Service Broadcaster on Friday paving the way for telecast of DD across most of Europe, Asia, North Africa and even up to Australia.
This would also provide DD a viable Direct To Home (DTH) distribution platform. The initiative will also provide a platform to project India’s view point to a global audience in a cost effective manner.
According to source, the agreement between the two entities would facilitate the availability of Doordarshan programmes on a ‘Free-to-Air’ basic package mode, on a DTH Platform.
Speaking on the occasion, CEO Prasar Bharati Shri Jawhar Sircar said the MOU would provide an important platform to position DD content globally. The content for the platform would be created based on the consultation with various stakeholders and the taste of the target audience.
The MoU entails distribution of ‘India Channel’ on DTH Platform of Hotbird-13B Satellite and the reciprocal distribution of DW-TV on DD Freedish. Hotbird-13B is an extremely popular DTH platform in Europe. It has a reach of 120 million homes in the continent, Northern Africa and the whole of Middle East, having a total number of 1543 TV channels of which 1117 TV channels are Free-to-Air.
One hundred twenty four English channels are available on this satellite, prominent amongst which are BBC, CNN, CCTV, RT, France24, VOA TV, Euromans, Sky News, Bloomberg TV, Al Jazeera, etc. Placing DD on Hotbird DTH Platform will also give it full access to the Middle Eastern Countries, where Indians work and reside in large numbers, said then sources. DD will be offered in the basic package of the DTH service which does not require any individual to either subscribe to it or to pay for viewing the channel.