Oil PSUs to Prasar Bharti's rescue; promise ads for CWG

With advertisers hard to come by, oil PSUs have been roped in to bailout public broadcaster Doordarshan - the official telecaster of the 12-day Commonwealth Games.

Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC), Indian Oil Corp (IOC) and other state-owned oil firms will buy air-time worth Rs 10 crore during telecast of the Games between October 3 and 14, sources in know of the development said.

Lack of advertisers interest has already forced Prasar Bharti, which administers Doordarshan, to halve the revenue target from ad slots during the Games to Rs 100 crore.

Concerned at the poor showing, Oil Minister Murli Deora today led heads of ONGC, IOC and gas utility GAIL India to Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit in a show of solidarity.

ONGC Chairman and Managing Director R S Sharma, IOC Chairman B M Bansal and GAIL Chairman and Managing Director B C Tripathi promised all support, sources said, adding that ONGC will buy air-time worth Rs 5 crore and IOC Rs 1.5 crore. GAIL and other oil firms Bharat Petroleum and Hindsutan Petroleum too will chip in with Rs 3.5 crore.

Sources said originally the government had asked oil PSUs to chip in with Rs 100 crore worth of advertising on Doordarshan, with ONGC contributing half of this as principal advertiser. This was subsequently scaled down to Rs 15 crore with principal advertiser slot going to state power utility NTPC and PowerGrid.

But following controversies like alleged corruption in award of contracts for building stadia and buying equipments and poor preparedness for the extravaganza, sponsorships by PSUs was put on hold.

Sources said the poor response Prasar Bharti got from advertisers forced a rework and oil PSUs were roped in.