Prasar Bharati to soon auction archival content
NEW DELHI: Public broadcaster Prasar Bharati is planning to allow satellite TV channels and internet streaming content providers the option of purchasing archival content that dates back to before the Independence, a move meant to boost revenues and digitisation.
The content includes a trove of rich footage, such as the constituent assembly debates and of moments that were significant milestones for the country. These will be syndicated to bidders through an e-auction.
“The policy will ensure that archival and premium content of Prasar Bharati is syndicated to third parties through an open and transparent mechanism of e-auction in order to fetch the maximum market value of content on demand basis,” the broadcaster said in a notification dated October 8.
“Prasar Bharati, the Public Service Broadcaster in its mandate, has played a key role in modern times for preservation and promotion of Indian culture, history and values. This has been the key factor in content creation since inception. Prasar Bharati has accumulated rich and heritage content in its centralised repository at Archives as well as a number of Stations, Kendras located in all corners of the nation. News division of AIR & DD too have an illustrious recording of many important milestones of development of India,” it added.
According to Prasar Bharati CEO Shashi Shekhar Vempati, both Doordarshan and AIR have accumulated a lot of iconic content, which has been created over decades. “It has been lying idle on tapes and as the technology evolved, the world has moved to the digital sphere. One of the first steps taken by the broadcaster was to digitise this content. This includes many preindependence era events, the constituent assembly debates and parliamentary debates.”
He added that the broadcasting agency received several requests from various OTT platforms and news media channels to access this content. “What was lacking was that there was no enabling framework, so a policy was required by virtue of which content can be syndicated or monetized,” he said.
The content will be monetised under both exclusive and nonexclusive categories. “Exclusive rights may be priced at a premium relative to non-exclusive rights, similarly longer-term syndication may be incentivised over shorter duration. Exclusive rights may be auctioned first before attempting auction of non-exclusive rights,” stated the notification.
While premium content may be auctioned only for one year or less, archival content may be auctioned for minimum five years. “Once the licensing period ends, the licensee shall not have any rights to own, share or use the licensed content... He/she may need to participate in the e-auction process once again...”