In what marks the possible resurgence of the Doordarshan network, DD India which is targeted at the Indian audiences living abroad has made it to the top five English News Channels as per the latest BARC data. The channel made a surprise entry at the second position with ratings of 557. Republic TV led the genre with ratings of 667. Times Now got the third position with ratings of 511. A. Surya Prakash, Chairman of the Prasar Bharati and its CEO Shashi Shekhar congratulated DD India on its achievement.
This marks the possible resurgence of the Doordarshan network. At one time, Doordarshan used to be the only major network in the country and enjoyed huge popularity. However, after the advent of private television networks, Doordarshan has witnessed a continuous fall in viewership and revenue. It has almost been seen as an ailing Enterprise in the recent past. As per a 2016 news report, DD National had registered 82.66 million impressions across rural and urban markets in the week ended October 14 in 2016. This was rather bleak when compared to the most-viewed channel Star Plus which had a viewership of 706.324 million impressions. DD National no longer found a place among the 10 most-watched Hindi general entertainment channels in the urban and rural viewership matrix.
The decline in viewership has directly translated into dipping revenue for the iconic state-owned television network. Doordarshan saw its revenue decline from Rs. 911.01 crore in 2014-15 to Rs755.79 crore in 2015-16. Moreover, things improved in the succeeding year and its net revenue rose to Rs. 827.51 crore in 2016-17.
Therefore, the fact that DD India has reported such high ratings comes as welcome news for the Doordarshan network. It goes on to hint at a strong possibility of Doordarshan’s revival which was witnessing a downside for quite some time. The channel has been able to catch the attention of the target audience and this is the reason why it was able to surpass a popular news channel like the Times Now. The Doordarshan network had enjoyed immense popularity before the advent of private television networks. However, once the private channels had commercialised the television industry, Doordarshan started lagging behind. From this latest report of DD India finding its way among top five in English News Genre, it seems that Doordarshan has finally moved on the correct path.
The fact that DD India has seen an unprecedented rise in its viewership levels also implies that other channels which earlier enjoyed popularity with the Indian audiences are now lagging behind. It seems that there is a sense of disillusionment towards the mainstream media. This disillusionment can be attributed, in part, to the brazen propaganda for a particular ideology among a dominant section of the mainstream media. Especially when it comes to the English News Channels, most of them are not even subtle when it comes to their propagandist character. For several decades, these news channels and their “eminent journalists” have been tirelessly and relentlessly trying to serve a particular ideology. Some of these eminent journalists have now become infamous for their biases and prejudices. The resurgence of DD India thus goes on to show that the Indian audience is no longer going to tolerate this noise. The falling standards of these news channels have thus directly helped DD India.