The foundation stone-laying ceremony for Ayodhya’s Ram Temple on August 5, 2020, last year’s Independence Day celebrations, the inauguration of the Kashi Vishwanath Dham in Varanasi on December 13, 2021, and Republic Day 2022 parade were major events, which fetched Doordarshan highest viewership in the last two years, News18 has learnt. This is also because many private television channels also aired DD’s live feed on these events.
The state-owned broadcaster’s feed on political events such as the foundation stone-laying ceremony for the Ram Temple and the inauguration of Kashi Vishwanath Dham were carried by 198 and 146 channels. While the former got a total of 7,299 million viewing minutes, the latter got total 1,017 million viewing minutes.
DD’s live telecast of 2021 Independence Day and the 73rd Republic Day parade were carried by 182 and 187 channels. The first generated a viewership of 2,583 million viewing minutes, while the Republic Day parade garnered a viewership of 3,172 million viewing minutes.
The number of channels referred here also include DD channels.
Other events covered by DD, such as PM Narendra Modi’s Pariksha Pe Charcha programme in April 2021 and the Shankaracharya statue inauguration in Kedarnath in November 2021 were also carried by a large number of private television channels and generated substantial viewership.
In most of these events, PM Modi was at the centre stage.
According to government sources, DD Punjabi, DD Sahyadri and DD National have the maximum viewership among all its channels. “At times, DD Sports overtakes all of them when there are live matches,” a DD official said.
In a reply to Parliament on Thursday, Information and Broadcasting minister Anurag Thakur said that the overall viewership for DD channels has not declined in the recent past despite the growth in the number of private television channels over the years and this is because several private television channels carry DD’s live content.
At present, DD has 36 channels, which run 24X7. It also has 51 co-branded educational channels.
According to the data presented in the Rajya Sabha, the gross unique viewers for DD channels, including DD National, DD News and DD India have substantially grown since 2016.
The I&B minister also said Prasar Bharati took steps such as re-telecasting popular mythical shows Ramayan and Mahabharat during the 2020 lockdown and also started DD Retro, among other steps, to increase DD’s viewership.
Parliament was also told that the coverage of the Republic Day celebrations 2022 on DD’s YouTube channel garnered 2.6 crore views, which were much more than its TV network.
However, despite its viewership, the commercial revenues earned by DD channels have gone down in the last three years. From Rs 623.84 crore earned by DD as commercial revenues in 2018-2019, it has gone down to Rs 272.61 crore in 2020-21, which the I&B ministry had told a parliamentary panel last year is because of on-request pro bono campaigns and reduced overall media spending.
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