Doordarshan's Problems

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Themes: Brand Management
Period : 1994-2001
Organization : Doordarshan
Pub Date : 2002
Countries : India
Industry : Media, Entertainment & Information

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Case Code : BSTR012
Case Length : 8 Pages
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Tangle of Problems Contd...

It was reported that in 1998, CBI arrested two DD officials for taking bribes from a serial producer. The incident highlighted the length at which corruption was rampant in the organization. This forced Prasar Bharti management to issue guidelines regarding acceptance of gifts and hospitality by the employees. DD's track record in both payments to and collections from private players had been poor. Over 50 companies owed Rs 18.2 mn to DD as on July 2001.

Amitabh Bachchan Corporation Limited (ABCL)¹² was DD's highest debtor with outstanding dues of Rs 330 mn. DD also faced a number of allegations of large-scale scams and irregularities.

It was alleged that DD allowed International Cricket Council (ICC) Chief Jagmohan Dalmiya and WorldTel's Mark Mascarenhas to defraud DD of Rs 160 mn over the telecast of a 1998 tournament¹³ in Dhaka.

The poor performance of DD could also be attributed to its pricing for the advertisement slots. DD charged the producers around Rs 1 lakh for 10 seconds whereas some highest rated soaps on C&S homes charged half of that. Another major problem that plagued DD, was the lack of a marketing team, which could market the advertisement slots as a package.

Private channels like ZEE and Star had their own marketing teams, which provided the advertisers with package of advertisement slots on their programmes.

But in case of DD, there were 56 different producers with 56 different half-an-hour program slots for four hours of prime time each week, who would sell their commercial time separately, to the same advertiser. But advertisers preferred package deals, which would give them airtime across the programmes for whole week.

Fresh Lease of Life

After S.S.Gill was sacked in 1998, Rajeeva Ratna Shah (Shah) was appointed as the new CEO of Prasar Bharti. Shah started redoing DD1's and DD2's programming and also started weeding out corruption at the network. To weed out corruption Shah stopped commissioning of programmes on DD1 and DD2.

He decided to auction programming hours to the private players who produced the programs for the DD and market them. Shah also announced setting up of a board comprising of eminent filmmakers, actors, poets, writers and people from different walks of life to revamp DD.

In 2000, government appointed a committee headed by Shunu Sen, CEO, Quadra Advisory, a Strategic Marketing Consultancy, N. R. Narayanmurthy, CEO, Infosys and Kiran Karnik to work out a revival package for DD.

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12] ABCL was promoted by the popular filmstar Amitabh Bachchan and company owed huge amounts to DD.
13] Asia Cup.