Prasar Bharati may lose Rs 100 crore on low carriage fees

DD Direct Plus, the free-to-air direct-to-home (DTH) service of state-owned Prasar Bharati, stands to lose over Rs 100 crore in 2008-09 due to under-pricing of its carriage fees and underutilisation of its DTH transponder capacity, say experts.

According to a senior Prasar Bharati official, there are about 27 private channels on board DD Direct Plus, with each channel paying Rs 60 lakh per annum as carriage fees. This, according to experts, is about one-fifth the carriage fees charged by private DTH operators.

“For the 27 channels that pay the carriage fees, Prasar Bharati should receive a minimum of Rs 81 crore, whereas it is getting only Rs 16.2 crore annually. For a government-funded venture, it is a straight loss of about Rs 64 crore,” an expert on DTH services said.

According to Prasar Bharati officials, DD Direct Plus will shortly add another 11-12 private channels to increase its overall channel offerings from 47 to about 59. The new additions will also pay flat Rs 60 lakh per year as carriage fees, officials say.

At that rate, calculations show that Prasar Bharati will make another Rs 7.2 crore when it should have got around Rs 36 crore after charging the average prevailing carriage fees of Rs 3 crore per channel annually.

A senior Prasar Bharati official admitted that it was losing out on revenue by charging a very low amount as carriage fees. He said, “We have a core committee on DTH operations that reviews the carriage fees and other issues related with DD Direct Plus on a monthly basis. Since the new rate of Rs 60 lakh as carriage fees came into effect from August, we will have to wait for at least six months before revising the carriage fees.”

The official said that there were about 45 channels on the panel that wanted a slot on DD Direct Plus and were willing to pay Rs 60 lakh as annual carriage fees. “We can accommodate only 11-12 channels, so we can not take all. But we don’t turn down any channel. We keep them on our panel and consider their case as and when the space is created on DD Direct Plus,” the official said.

According to technical experts, Prasar Bharati is also not utilising its transponder capacity to the optimum. “While the private DTH operators are offering about 14-16 channels per transponder, DD Direct Plus is placing only 10-12 channels on each transponder.

With 5 ku-band transponders, it should offer about 70-odd channels at least — another instance where the public-funded body is losing an opportunity of maximising its revenues,” a technical expert and consultant to DTH companies said.

The Prasar Bharati official said that some new equipment were currently being installed to better its channel compression capabilities. “We are adding more private channels to our DTH platform due to the new equipment that will create more space on the transponders,” the official said.