Prasar Bharati eyes Rs 1,000 cr this fiscal

Cashing in on cricket broadcast and a slew of other initiatives, financially-crunched public broadcaster Prasar Bharati is eyeing an over 20 per cent growth in revenues this fiscal to Rs 1,000 crore (Rs 10 billion).

"We hope to touch Rs 1,000 crore revenue this fiscal and would like to see this northward trajectory to continue in the coming years," K S Sarma, CEO, Prasar Bharati told PTI.

The public broadcaster's revenue in fiscal 2004-05 stood at Rs 825 crore (Rs 8.25 billion), with Doordarshan contributing Rs 665 crore (Rs 6.65 billion) and All India Radio chipping in with Rs 160 crore (Rs 1.6 billion).

"There has been growth in revenues of both DD and AIR and we expect this to continue," Sarma said.

He said DD was expected to clock revenues of Rs 800 crore this fiscal, a growth of almost 51 per cent, while AIR is expected to contribute Rs 200 crore, moving up by 66.6 per cent.

Despite this growth, overall figures still remain grim for the public broadcaster, which was given the status of an autonomous body in 1997. With a Rs 1,900 crore (Rs 19 billion) annual expenditure, it depends heavily on government grants.

Sarma said telecast of Indian cricket matches on DD and simultaneous broadcast on AIR was giving them good money. In fact, the just-concluded India-Pakistan cricket series earned them a net profit of Rs 70 crore (Rs 700 million), he pointed out.

However, he said other initiatives proved to be long-term money-spinners for Prasar Bharati. These, he said, were in addition to the austerity measures it was already following.

The public broadcaster has witnessed great success in its Direct-to-Home initiative, which it launched late last year. In just a few months following the launch of the free-to-air platform, Prasar Bharati managed to sell a whopping three million units.

Compared to this, Subhash Chandra-promoted Dish TV, which was the first player to enter the DTH arena, has just about two lakh subscribers.

"Having carved a market for our DTH platform, we are contemplating charging the private channels on board on service from this year end," Sarma said.

There are more than a dozen private channels on the public broadcaster's platform and Sarma said they could charge a carriage fee of Rs 1 crore from each.

Also, Prasar Bharati, which is collecting arrears from producers, is earning money through running advertisements of various government departments on DD and AIR. "Through these advertisements, primarily by departments like agriculture, health and family welfare and IRDA, we are expected to get over Rs 150 crore," he said.

The public broadcaster is also raking in money by telecasting some of the latest Bollywood films on weekends.

"This is contributing in crores of rupees as there is a good viewership for these movies which get the advertisers for us," Sarma said.

He said that running scrolls on its transmitters installed at various locations across the country were also earning good revenue. "Through this, we expect revenues of Rs 50 crore (Rs 500 million) this fiscal," he added.