DD’s private content plan fails

THE SCRUTINY and the evaluation committee rejected the proposals of seven production houses for time slots on the national broadcaster

Prasar Bharati’s ambitious plan to garner better TRPs by engaging private production houses to generate content for Doordarshan has fallen flat on its face. The scrutiny and the evaluation committee, which examined the proposals of seven production houses for time slots on the national broadcaster, has found that none of the production houses are eligible for participating in the e- auction under the eligibility criteria, as prescribed in the request for proposal ( RFP).

“As per the eligibility criteria as prescribed in the RFP none of the production houses have been found eligible for participating in the e- auction,” sources told this newspaper.

Only seven production houses had submitted their bids for the sale of prime time slots on DD- National. Sources stated that the scrutiny and the evaluation committee had examined the qualification bids of these production houses for the eligibility criteria as prescribed in the RFP.

It is believed that Doordarshan, despite having the largest terrestrial reach across the country, is likely to relax the eligibility criteria for production houses to seek private content.

The slot sale policy has proved to be a non- starter despite extending bid dates as it received only seven proposals. When asked about the alleged failure of the policy and future plans for revival of national broadcaster’s content, CEO Jawhar Sircar refused to comment.

This newspaper had last week reported that seven production houses had submitted proposals to participate in the slot sale process. The production houses are Balaji Telefilms, Cinevista, Keylight Productions, Optymistrix, Rash Productions, Contiloe Entertainment and Shakuntalam Telefilms. In all 11 slots were up for grabs on the national broadcaster.