PRASAR BHARATI STRIKES BACK

As smartphones take over TV as the primary source of entertainment in India, the national broadcaster is planning a comeback

- Abdul Haleem Sherif

In India of the 1970s and 80s, Doordarshan was ubiquitous, and alone. Every evening, tens of people would gather at tea shacks and at homes in the country’s small towns and villages to watch televised renditions of centuries-old tales of Ramayan and Mahabharat. Weekend entertainment would mean communally viewing musical shows like Chitrahar and Rangoli. All on Doordarshan. Then came the 1990s. And with that liberalisation. As cable operators and direct-to-home (DTH) services mushroomed across the country, Doordarshan lost out. The advent of internet-enabled media further marginalised it. First, social media took over. And then online streaming.

But two years ago, Prasar Bharati—the state broadcaster that runs Doordarshan—had an idea. In a world where the television was being replaced by the smartphone, the broadcaster put together technology, with help from experts at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Kanpur, that would stream directly to phones, potentially sans the internet. And with this piece of tech, Prasar Bharati now wants to upset the video market.

“With the ever-expanding base of smartphones coupled with explosive growth in video consumption, there are increasing demands being placed on mobile network infrastructure. A direct-to-mobile (D2M) broadcast network creates a platform to disseminate video content, educational or data content, emergency alerts and radio content in a very cost-effective manner,” says Gaurav Dwivedi, chief executive of Prasar Bharati. The Union government is trying this technology out across 19 Indian cities.

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