Addressing mediaperson on Wednesday, Shah announced that Prasar Bharati hasposted an all-time high commercial and advertisement revenue of Rs 610.29crore in 1999-2000, as against Rs 414.37 crore in the previous year, a jumpof over 47 per cent. A sizable chunk of the revenue (Rs 159.8 crore) camefrom cricket telecast while All India Radio's contribution to the kitty wasabout Rs 90 crore, according to Rajeeva Ratna Shah.

Shah said efforts were on to further shore up the Doordarshan's bottomlinein the current financial year (2000-01) by treating each of its channel as aseparate profit centre. A revamp of AIR's operations are also in the offing,he said. AIR has earned a revenue of about Rs 90 crore in 1999-2000 comparedto Rs 74.20 crore in 1998-99 and Rs 84.04 crore in 1997-98.

All these is expected to net Prasar Bharati a revenue in excess of Rs 775crore, he said. On the regional language channel front, the nationalbroadcaster is gearing up to take the challenge to private satellitechannels, said Shah. The focus will be to make the regional channels roundthe clock, he added.

The Gujarati channel will go 24-hour from May 1. A bouquet of channels arein the offing for Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh in thenext few months, he said.

Shah said Doordarshan's national network (DD-I) has recorded an revenue ofRs 317 crore. This has enabled the national broadcaster to not only arrestthe declining revenue trend but also make a fast turnaround, headded.However the revenue of metro channel (DD-II) have dropped to Rs 46crore in 1999-2000 compared to Rs 78.61 crore last year. He said theCalcutta, Thiruvananthapuram and Lucknow regional channels generatedall-time highs with revenues of Rs 25.84 crore, Rs 20.17 crore, and Rs 4.14crore respectively.

Quoting the television audience measurement (TM) survey, Shah said theviewership of DD-I had shot up by 26 per cent between June 1999 and January2000. However, the viewership of DD-II has dropped to 46 per cent from 73.5per cent.

Shah claimed that TAM survey in 27 cities for the Prime time band (2000 hrsto midnight) had shown an increase of 44 per cent over a period of sixmonths, from 5.47 million viewers in August last to 7.9 million in Januarythis year.

Shah announced that Prasar Bharati will continue to get non-plan supportdespite the government decision to treat it as a full-fledged autonomousbody with effect from this financial year. The total budgetary support forPrasar Bharati has been fixed at Rs 1130.30 crore.

Shah said Doordarshan plans to market its news channel DD News in a majorway in the coming months. The corporation will also be looking for tie-upswith mobile operators to offer online news and current affairs. On revamp ofradio services, Shah said the focus would now be to generate revenue on theaudio media. Prasar Bharati plans to sell slots on its existing FM channelsto those interested in gaining audience share till their own stations comeup. A FM news channel is also in the offing, he added. Shah said thenational broadcaster is not averse to joint ventures if government gives ago-ahead to Doordarshan to start DTH operations in the country. Doordarshanhas entered into an agreement with Modi Entertainment Network to monitor thereception of DD channels in the cable and satellite households.