Govt wants to do a BBC with Channel Asia

The country may launch an international news channel without involving Doordarshan, which will be modelled on the lines of the BBC and the CNN, a government official has said.

"We have had some initial discussions on the matter after the idea was raised by industry," Information and Broadcasting Secretary SK Arora said.

According to sources, the proposal for Channel Asia can cost the government a whopping Rs 350 crore, which, among other things, would be required for placing correspondents in various countries and setting up infrastructure.

Arora said the matter was still in the conceptual stage and nothing concrete had been worked out on the launch of the channel, which aimed to project India "as it stands today" in the global context.

"The idea is to have an autonomous channel on the lines of the BBC and the CNN. If it goes ahead, it will have correspondents in all major cities of the world, including in Asia, Europe and North America," Arora said.

Emphasising that the idea for an international channel was "nothing new," he said it was a long-pending proposal which had been taken up for discussion.

On the reasons for avoiding the Doordarshan tag on the proposed channel, he said it was being done to help the channel get rid of the image of being a government mouthpiece.

"We would like to delink the channel from any such impression and are looking to make it a completely autonomous channel with a separate CEO and COO," he said.

Sources, however, said no matter how ambitious the proposal might look, it had to be taken with a pinch of salt, considering the past record of the government with news channels and the performance of public broadcaster Prasar Bharati's DD News.

With a major portion of funding coming from the government, the channel has been accused in many circles of being a mouthpiece of the government of the day and has been dismissed as uncompetitive compared with private channels.

Doordarshan has an international channel, DD India, which is available in countries like Canada, the US and the Middle-East.

However, Arora said DD India was targeted only at expatriate Indians. "It has special programming designed only for Indians living abroad and is of not much relevance to foreigners," he said.