NEW DELHI: Pubcaster Doordarshan is gearing up to cover the world?s most spectacular sporting event that kicks off on 27 July. Doordarshan, which is going to cover the 2012 London Olympic Games without any outsourcing, has sought a budget of just over Rs 310 million for the entire coverage of the games. Out of this, around $4 million would go into the telecast licence fee.

DD additional DG Ashok Jailkhani told Indiantelevision.com that the entire coverage in London would be done by the DD team on its own and there would be no outsourcing of any kind. Even the equipment being used was being taken by DD from India.

DD is planning to send a contingent of 50 persons to London
to cover the Games that are beginning on the night of 27 July and concluding on the night of 13 August.

Jailkhani said that while DD Sports will cover the Olympics round the clock, the opening and closing will also be beamed live by the national channel DD One. DD could also consider telecasting other events on DD One if India reaches the semi-finals or finals in any discipline depending on events.

A daily half-hour programme, ?India at London?, will be telecast on both DD 1 and DD Sports every morning from 7.30 am to from 27 July to 12 August, which will be repeated on DD Sports at noon.

In addition, there will be daily hour-long highlights of the previous day from 29 July to 13 August which will be simulcast on DD One and DD Sports from 9.30 am.

The live telecast will commence on DD Sports everyday from around noon and continue till the live signal is available late in the night (around 1 am). Thereafter, DD Sports will telecast either repeats or other events which could not be shown live.

When asked about the clashing events, which will be taking place at 33 venues, Jailkhani said that Indian participation will decide which events should be shown live.

India is taking part in 12 events: archery, athletics, badminton, boxing, hockey, wrestling, weightlifting, table tennis, shooting, basketball, volleyball and aquatic events.

It is expected that DD director general Tripurani Sharan, Jaikhani, and ADG (Engineering) RS Srivastava will be going for different periods to oversee the DD coverage.

When asked why DD is not covering the Indo-Sri Lanka series taking place in the island nation, Jailkhani said several events are clashing and so DD has decided not to cover the series.

While there is no clash for the first one-day international, the second ODI will clash with the farewell message of the outgoing President Pratibha Devisingh Patil on 24 July between 7-9 pm.

The third ODI would clash with the events relating to the men?s archery events and pistol events at the Olympics.

The fourth ODI would clash with the men?s finals in shooting (skeet) and the men?s and doubles tennis quarter-finals. The fifth ODI will coincide with the shooting, badminton, tennis and athletics, while the lone T20 will clash with boxing, wrestling and athletics events.

Meanwhile, private broadcaster ESPN Star Sports has lined up 3,800 hours of coverage across its 15 channels in Asia and is targeting advertising revenue of Rs 500 million.

Also Read:
Olympics wins as DD decides to give India-Sri Lanka series a miss

NEW DELHI: Although Doordarshan?s DD Urdu commenced in November 2007 and over 1000 proposals for new programmes have been submitted in two batches by around 800 producers since 2009, the channel is only beaming repeat programmes or those taken from DD Kashir for more than three years.

However, this claim by private disillusioned producers was contested by Doordarshan Deputy Director General Ashok Jailkhani, who told indiantelevision.com that DD Urdu was showing several news programmes. He also felt there was nothing wrong in taking programmes from DD Urdu.

Meanwhile, he also said it was erroneous to say that no steps had been taken on the 1069 proposals, adding that some meetings of select committees had been held and the proposals were ?under review?.

According to the producers, proposals for commissioning programmes had been invited twice, and each proposal had to be accompanied with a processing fee of Rs 25,000.

Brief proposals were invited up to 21 August 2009, wherein approximately 639 proposals were received. Presentations for the same were conducted from September 2010 to November 2010 before a duly (single) constituted committee.

The second Commissioning was notified without concluding the earlier exercise by making minor modification in the brief, but without notifying any reasons for this action.

The proposals were invited up to 1 October 2010 and up to 430 fresh proposals were submitted. The presentations for the same were conducted from 26 December 2011 to 23 February 2012 before three Committees comprising three members each.

The producers claim that the action by the public broadcaster has not only harmed the interests of Urdu, but harmed the image of the broadcaster itself.

They said each of the producers spent Rs 200,000 to Rs 5000 each and had undergone several hardships. Apart from the processing fee of Rs 25,000 for each proposal, the producers had spent money on reputed writers, directors and language experts, expenses were made during the presentations including air/rail travel, hotel and local conveyance for the experts were undertaken twice, money was paid for acquiring of rights of novels /published works; re-payment of the same to maintain the status quo so that the proposal still remains viable; and professional fees (although token) were paid to the creative team to remain with the project, apart from payments to language experts.

The channel totally banked on acquisition programmes which were invited in the years 2005, 2006 and 2007 respectively.

Prasar Bharti sources told Indiantelevision.com that the total outlay of Rs 2.5 billion at the rate of Rs 500 million per year had been projected for the channel during the 12th plan, which is subject to approval of the planning commission.

The formal announcement about DD Urdu came on 15 August 2006. The language channel has been on air for 24 hours from 14 November 2007. The channel?s mandate was to encapsulate heritage, culture, literature, information, education and societal issues specific to the target audience.

The theme that predominantly runs through the transmission relates to modernising educational and social outlook of the target audience, document and show comparative study of societies in the South-Asian neighbourhood to draw lines of demarcation between democratic and non-democratic social structures, popularising science, technology, IT and demystifying science, conserving literary and cultural traditions identified with Urdu, and portrayal of Urdu as one of the modern Indian languages.