Doordarshan looks to stem slide, sets up War Room to re-position itself

Doordarshan has set up a ‘War Room’ in the office of the Director General to devise a strategy to re-position the national broadcaster. The ‘War Room’ will deep dive into the issues that are adversely impacting DD’s performance.

In a circular issued in August 2016, Supriya Sahu, Director General, Doordarshan, stated that DD is passing through a deep crisis in terms of its falling viewership, decreasing revenue and depleting manpower.

The circular further stated, “On top of it, it is battling a negative perception about the way it functions, specially in the way programmes are procured, payments are made and marketing is done. We need to change this perception. This would happen through a very strategic thinking, planning, implementation and initiation.”

The strategic War Room team will:

• Study rules/ regulations for in-house production and suggest measures to modify/ change them to improve in-house production
• Suggest programme ideas for national and regional channels for in-house production immediately to improve ratings and enhance revenues
• Study rules/ guidelines for procurement of films and suggest a system and credible policy for procurement of films, for example, auctioning of film slots
• Suggest ways to attract and invite fresh and new talent for various DD channels
• Suggest new ways of content procurement
• Suggest measures to invite fresh and new talent on DD
• Devise new strategies to revitalise DD’s marketing opportunities
• Suggest new and innovative formats for programmes specific to each channel, that is, DD National, DD Kisan, DD Bharati, DD India, DD Urdu, DD Kashir and DD Sports
• Suggest measures to bring in innovations
• Suggest ways to pool resources and synergise efforts for maximising DD’s impact

The strategy group, reporting directly report to the DG, include the following officers:
• G Sajan, DDP (Team Leader)
• PK Srivastava
• Sandeep Sood
• Anurag Darshan
• Abhishek Dubey
• Soma Bose
• Sanjeev Rai
• Tathagat
• Karmdeep
• Birupakhya Goutam Phukan
• Arjun Mehto