All about Innovation at DDK Mumbai

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0900 RESPONDING TO THE SATELLITE CHALLENGE Mukesh Sharma, Director Doordarshan Mumbai: reviving DD’s fortunes Gokul Singh Khatre, Nepal TV: asserting a Nepalese identity Mukesh Sharma Director Doordarshan Mumbai gave a presentation on the setting up of the Doordashan Marathi language satellite channel Sahyadri. The channel had come into existence as DD-10 in August 1994 with 10 hours of telecasting. In April 2000 the channel was renamed Sahyadri and launched as a 24 hour channel. Between 1430 and 2000, the transmissions had terrestrial support from 104 transmitters in Maharashtra and Goa, giving the channel access to more than 50 million viewers. By the year 2000, four more Marathi channels had come into existence - Alpha Marathi in the Zee Network, Eenadu Marathi , Prabhat from an NRI Group, and Tara formerly in the Star Group. Alpha Marathi had established the lead with 35-40% of channel reach, whereas Sahyadri at that time was at around 3%. The connectivity of the channel in cable and satellite homes was very poor; the signals were distorted by the cable operators; the programming was unimaginative; the transmission quality bad; and the staff had low morale and lacked motivation. Mukesh Sharma took over as Director in May 2000 with the aim of making Sahyadri the leading Marathi channel. Nearly 20 hours of live programming was started, with more phone-in programmes, more colourful and vibrant sets and a new presentation style. Through the intervention of the minister ( Arun Jaitley), the channel was given a place on the prime band and better cable connectivity was achieved. Better rapport with DD engineers brought an improvement in video quality. Careful scheduling pitched a successful afternoon phone-in programme called ‘Hello Officer’ against feature films on other channels. The police commissioner, who featured in one programme, told DD: ‘ I had better move my office here as things move faster!’ Capacity to cover live events was increased. Live coverage of the International Fleet Review was a technical feat for the station. More than 50% of airtime was given to public service programmes. Over a period of a year, new young talent was introduced. New five minute slots were created which brought additional advertising revenues. All slots were sold to the highest bidder, with no favouritism whatsoever. A number of innovative gameshows were developed in house. After a gap of several years, film stars, VIPs and celebrities began to participate in programmes. Two additional news bulletins were introduced ( bringing new revenues) ; daily programme meetings with staff helped to raise standards and overcome technical and production problems; the station also demanded a level playing field from the press and improved its media profile. In due course, it was asked to produce a national phone-in featuring great artists like Bismillah Khan. Mukesh Sharma said his philosophy as Director was ‘to remain a subject to my people and not act as Director’. He would call up the station at 0200 or 0400 to talk to programme and engineering staff. ‘Only when you’re crazy, do you get things working’ he said. Within twelve months, there had been spectacular growth in the channel’s audience - from 3% to 43%. In April 2000, it had 29.3 million urban viewers and 19.5 million rural viewers - with over 50 million viewer in total. It had succeeded in becoming the leading Marathi language channel. Mukesh Sharma set out the vision for Sahyadri in 2001-2002: a) to ensure that it maintained its number one position among Marathi channels b) to increase viewership by another 25% c) to increase the revenue target by another 50% and d) to ensure that the public service broadcasting mandate of the channel remained intact.