Doordarshan Offers Budget Package For $75,000
The STAR TV-Doordarshan tussle over telecasting Union finance minister P Chidamba-rams budget speech has taken a new turn. Responding to STAR Plus request for permission to air the speech, Doordarshan has offered a package of budget-related programmes, including the budget speech, to satellite channels. The cost: $75,000.
In a press release issued late last night, Zee TV announced that it will telecast live the budget speech and all the special programmes on the Budget commissioned by DD-1 and DD-2.
However, Doordarshan will be supplying about 90 seconds of footage free of cost to CNN under the two-year agreement between the two, which will be reviewed later this year.
The inclusion of the budget speech in the package of budget-related programmes, which will also be aired on Doordarshan, puts private satellite channels like STAR TV in a spot as these channels have planned their own budget specials.
Early this month, the Prannoy Roy-controlled New Delhi Television (NDTV) had sought access to the budget papers in advance, along with permission to telecast the finance ministers speech live on STAR Plus. The first request was turned down on security grounds, while a decision on the second issue is still awaited.
In the recent past, Doordarshan and STAR Plus have both aired the budget speech live after STAR agreed to pay a telecast fee to use signals generated by Doordarshan. Last year, the telecast fee paid by Star was approximately $15,000.
A senior information and broadcasting ministry official confirmed Doordarshans counter-offer to STAR and other private channels. Access to the finance ministers speech is a unique selling proposition of Doordarshan. If it wants to exploit it commercially, others should not object, said the official.
If STAR Plus accepts the offer, it can either take the feeds of TV Today-produced budget programmes on DD1 or Apca-produced programmes on DD2.
According to the official, the reason behind offering the entire package is to prevent loss of advertising revenue. For example, if STAR Plus simultaneously airs the speech, it could attract some advertisers away from Doordarshan.
However, STAR TV is unlikely to accept the offer. Why should we pay for the feed on the finance ministers speech and also air programmes where views are expressed by others for a different channel, when we have our own set of experts and analysts? asked a senior STAR TV executive.
The executive also scoffed at Doordarshans reasoning that making the cue sheets of the budget-related programme available today would help STAR air commercials during breaks. In Doordarshan, most things are done manually, which will not only inconvenience our advertisers but also the Hong Kong-based technicians, the executive pointed out.
Last week, various news organisations were up in arms against the finance ministrys plan to hand over the budget speech to Prannoy Roys team for STAR Plus a few hours before Chidambaram reads it in the Lok Sabha at 5 p m today.
Although Chidambaram and his aides were favourably disposed towards the idea, the Press Information Bureau opposed the move on the grounds that this would be discriminatory against other private channels. Adequate security could not be provided by the Intelligence Bureau to everybody, it pointed out.
Until last year, Prannoy Roy used to anchor Doordarshans budget-related programmes. Therefore, NDTV used to receive copies of the speech in the morning for its team of analysts. They were then locked up incommunicado in a Doordarshan studio until the speech was delivered.