NEW DELHI: National broadcaster Doordarshan has turned the corner in financial year 2018-19, according to its director-general Supriya Sahu, who tweeted earlier this week that the government-owned channel has hit a 5-year high in revenues and become operationally profitable after several straight loss-making years.
“A new record created by team DD. Highest revenue earned in the last five years. Doordarshan turns around. No longer a loss making organisation. Now operationally profitable,” Sahu tweeted, along with a graph on the channel’s gross revenue and net revenue details over the last five years.
According to Sahu, gross and net revenue stood at Rs 1,113.7 crore and Rs 943.8 crore respectively in 2018-19 compared to Rs 1,027.7 crore and Rs 884.4 crore respectively the previous fiscal year. The channel, which has found it hard to compete with its private sector peers for a while, has finally gotten approval from the Prasar Bharti board to invest in new and quality content for Doordarshan during the current financial year 2019-20.
“Over the next few weeks the plan for new content on Doordarshan will be finalized. This infusion of new and quality content by Doordarshan should fill the vacuum from the exit of several GEC channels from the Free-To-Air space in general and from DD Free Dish in particular,” Prasar Bharti CEO Shashi Shekhar had tweeted earlier this month.
“The planned investment in new and quality content in Doordarshan will be targeted towards capturing this opportunity,” he went on to add.