PRASAR BHARATI'S TRANSMISSION VENTURE DELAYED

Prasar Bharati's attempts to hive off Doordarshan's transmission activities into a seperate venture and form a joint venture with a foreign company has run into problems as the nod has to come from the government which is not forthcoming because of the general elections round the corner.

According to Prasar Bharati chief executive, R.R. Shah, "The issue of hiving off the transmission activities and forming a joint venture will certainly need government clearance because of the sensitivities involved. This can only happen after the elections now."

Prasar Bharati had received a proposal from Telediffusion de France (TDF) stating they would be interested in taking care of the transmission activities of DD as they are a professional company and do similar ventures for various terrestrial broadcasters in Europe.

Shah said, "The TDF proposal currently is being studied, but the government clearance becomes necessary, as it will amount to separation of DD's transmission activities from production and will also involve taking a decision on the assets of DD and All India Radio which are yet to be transferred to Prasar Bharati by the government."

Admitting that the proposal is being "positively pursued", a senior board member of the Prasar Bharati, Rajendra Yadav, said, " We may also go in for a joint venture with TDF and the French company has indicated, if a joint venture is formed, it is ready to settle for a minority stake."

Shah clarified that the issue of shareholding pattern is another issue which needs to be cleared by the government.

Transmission is becoming an important issue for Prasar Bharati as DD1 and DD2 from 15 August are available in digital mode enabling cable operators to put them on satellite segment ensuring that problems of transmission quality disappear.

The Prasar Bharati board member said that TDF takes care of transmission activities of many broadcasters in Europe, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.

"It is a growing trend abroad that broadcasters, specially terrestrial broadcasters (like Doordarshan), are making companies like TDF responsible for their whole transmission activites and the necessary infrastructure," Yadav said.

Prasar Bharati will also be looking at commercially exploiting its proposed alliance alliance with TDF.

"If DD forms a joint venture with TDF for transmission activities which is satellite based too , then we'd be investing in infrastructure too. In that case lot of underutilised infrastructure can be rented out to other broadcasters also," adds Yadav.