Good news on DD

CABLE operators decide what we watch. The last one I had did not think Doordarshan News was his cup of tea. Too much chatter on subjects that were far from sexy. Nor was any one among his clientele clamouring for it, barring a certain cantankerous TV reviewer. So it remained missing from the bouquet of channels offered. Now with a broadband cable delivery company having eased out the earlier guy, I have access to DD News in all its glory. Or, more accurately, in all its expansiveness. And except for the relative absence of the performing arts, it is remarkably similar to DD3 which died a premature death in 1996.

Anything that is deemed unlikely to fetch advertising on DD1 and the Metro Channel finds space on DD News. If it is anchored by a somebody, or produced by a company owned by a somebody, so much the better. The concept of television programming as largesse has been honed to perfection in Doordarshan over many decades, under the tutelage of many an Information and Broadcasting Minister. So almost every editor in this sarkari town, every private producer with clout, has his or her little niche on DD News.

But for all that, it is not a bad channel to watch, and a positive relief from the melodrama or fake jollity that DD1 and 2 persist in serving up. News serves as a filler here, so the name of the channel is a misnomer. It is a current affairs channel, with its own contenders for the slots that have become mandatory: environment, business, technology, NRIs, foreign affairs and the arts. I said expansiveness because this is not the place for clipped soundbites. The edition of "Darpan" that I watched simply had a cameraman trot off to a seminar or workshop, record speakers at length and then strung together those presentations to fill a generous third of the programme. I do not know whether it was the cameraman or the reporter who jotted down the names of the speakers but Financial Express editor Sanjay Baru became Dr. Sanjay Barrot.

Time is not at a premium on DD News, there is loads of it available. Anybody who discusses anything on it carries on in unhurried fashion. "South File" on Saturday evenings at 6.30 pm has Sashi Kumar and Cho Ramaswamy discussing an issue, and then co-anchoring a couple of stories. At least one of these each week has a developmental bias which is welcome, and originate from one of the four Southern States. Last week there was a feature on a new film on Subramaniam Bharati and what people thought of it, which was interesting. It does remedy the Delhi bias in the current affairs fare available to the country, but last week's show was marred by poor lip synchronisation.

"Across the Seven Seas" continues the focus on NRIs begun by offerings such as "Out of India", and "NR Eyes". Farah Deba is refreshingly natural anchor, and this is a programme with a little zing of its own, intelligently done. "Earth Matters" has a documentary feel but is well documented and researched, not vacuous. And there is something called "Nightcap", the most memorable thing about which is the speech of its amazingly adenoidal woman anchor.

"Talk Back" features different leading journalists on different days. The chat one caught between Omkar Goswami and Sanjeev Saith of India Ink was low key but perfectly enjoyable. DD News is the channel offered by the State broadcaster which gets closest to its mandate of public service broadcasting. However, it is PBS for and by the chattering classes, dominated by talking heads.

The bad news is that the Expenditure Reforms Commission is not sufficiently enamoured of it to deem its continued existence necessary. In Part 3 of its second report titled "Rationalising of the functions, activities and structure of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting", it makes the following passing comment: "Doordarshan need only confine itself to two main channels - DD1 and DD2. Continuous news channel does not seem to be necessary considering that there has been considerable growth of private channels which are already being accessed extensively through cable services."

It is difficult to argue with that. By putting the programmes described above on DD News, Prasar Bharati only ensures that nobody watched them. This is the DD channel least carried by cable operator's if you do not count Gyan Darshan, the education channel.

As for the rest of its comments on Prasar Bharati which currently costs the tax payer more than Rs. three crores a day, and has a sanctioned staff strength of 45,000 people, it carries a cross- reference to the Shunu Sen Committee's report. The latter suggested that DD and AIR cut their engineering staff strength by 75 per cent. The report ofcourse, in good government fashion, is still being studied.

Today on the Discovery Channel: In 1984, with the United States falling behind the Soviets in the space exploration race, Ronald Reagan decided that NASA should develop a manned space station. Thereafter began a long exercise in persuasion whereby his space negotiator attempted to rope in Canada, Japan and European nations to share the costs of this adventure. At 9 p.m. today on the Discovery Channel catch "Inside the Space Station", which looks at this 16-country collaborative venture which will be completed in 2005. "Space Games" is an accompanying feature which looks at the politics behind the project. The programme uses computer generated images to show what this research facility with six laboratories will look like when it is completed.

SEVANTI NINAN

E-mail the writer at sevantininan@vsnl.com

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