NEW DELHI, DECEMBER 16: Doordarshan's revenues may be declining by the year, but that hasn't stopped it from extending a hand of friendship to private satellite networks. So beginning on January 26, private networks such as Zee TV, Sony, Star Plus and Discovery Channel will be providing two hours of software each for a 24-hour terrestrial Kashur Channel for the Kashmir Valley in the ``national interest''.The network will be launched on January 26 from a I kW transmitter in Srinagar and hopes to circumvent the ban on cable television by the militants. But for the first time, a Doordarshan channel will have other networks riding piggyback on it - networks which have grown at its expense in revenues. While DD's annual ad revenue is down to Rs 399 crore in 1998-99 from Rs 490 crore in 1997-98 and Rs 573 crore in 1996-97, Sony's ad revenue in 1998-99 was Rs 275 crore and Zee TV made Rs 375 crore.But clearly DD feels an extra-ordinary situation merits extra-ordinary measures. It hopes the network will also be watched across the border, and not be considered Indian Government `propaganda' either by the Valley or by Pakistan.The last two weeks has seen a series of meetings between Prasar Bharati CEO Rajeeva Ratna Shah and representatives of private networks. While last week, the CEO met Chairman of Zee TV, Subhash Chandra Geol, at Mandi House, this week it was the turn of Discovery Channel's Kiran Karnik, Star TV CEO Peter Mukherjea (who was assisted in his meeting by Director, News and Current Affairs, Indira Mansingh, at one time an officer of the Indian Information Service and a member of Rathikant Basu's core team at DD) and Sony CEO Kunal Dasgupta.In fact, DD is in quite a collaborative mood. It invited Modi Entertainment Network for a presentation on the monitoring of its distribution and presence on cable. The carrier of ESPN has quoted a stiff price - Rs 20 lakh every month - and DD is yet to decide whether it will agree to its terms. In the last two weeks, BBC has also made presentations to DD - one for collaboration in digital terrestrial television and the other in cricket production.
