Sunday, January 26, 2014

Report of The Expert Committee on Prasar Bharati

Expert Committee on Prasar Bharati under the chairmanship of Shri Sam Pitroda submitted its report to Hon'ble Shri Manish Tewari, Minister I&B on 24th January 2014.


Report ( in two parts) is available for download at :




Excerpts related to All India radio ...



Digitalise the present AM radio system to a new digital radio transmission after due evaluation subject to cost and availability of DRM receivers. In the transition period, FM may be expanded as per demand.
 
Digitalise the present AM radio system to a new digital radio transmission after due evaluation subject to cost and availability of DRM receivers. In the transition period, FM may be expanded as per demand.


For AIR, the Committee recommends a transition to DRM-MW from AMMW for national and regional coverage. This will be advantageous to the audience in terms of quality of reception, will offer operational savings and financial viability of investment to Prasar Bharati, while also freeing up some amount of the important national resource of spectrum. However, given the simultaneous existence of multifarious devices and the rapid decline in traditional devices, the investment in DRM should be carefully evaluated and calibrated, based on availability of reception devices and their cost.
 
Given the popularity of FM, AIR may continue to increase the coverage of FM as per demand. Once the DRM eco-system has stabilized, AIR can consider migration of FM to DRM. AIR may continue with SW to meet its strategic international coverage needs.
 
Excerpts from report by Group on Technology......


The Group on Technology, Prasar Bharati is of the view that the in the long run, convergence will lead to a common transmission platform servicing audio, video and text formats. Thus, the current set of audio and video transmission technologies being evaluated are intermediate & will service industry's need for 7 years only. For purpose of this evaluation, the group has undertaken a detailed evaluation of DVBT2/DVBT2 Lite/ DVB-NGH and Satellite transmission technologies for DD and DRM/DRM+ for AIR. An assessment of all the existing transmission technologies has been provided in Section 5.  
 
For AIR, the Group on Technology recommends to continue with SW to meet international coverage for strategic international locations. Further, it recommends transition to DRMMW from AM-MW to meet the National and Regional coverage. In the current landscape, FM is the most popular audio transmission system as it has both private and public participation. However, FM reaches to only 43% of the population. The needs of the Public Broadcaster are met by AM through MW and SW transmission. MW and SW together reach to 99% of the population but fail to provide stereo quality output to the listener as provided by FM. The Group understands that Prasar Bharati has adopted transitioning of AM to DRM to improve the quality of output and endorses the transition. However, the Group on Technology feels that the receiver eco-system of DRM is not fully developed. Therefore, it is critical to have necessary directives and implementation strategy for transition.
 
Further to increase the uptake of DRM and develop the receiver eco-system, it is critical for private sector to participate. The additional capacity generated by transitioning to DRM can be utilized by the private players to provide more variety to audience. Shifting to DRM from MW will generate additional bandwidth which can be used for the transmission of 4 Mono channels or 2 Stereo channels and allow for private participation. However in the transition phase, AIR will have to provide both Analog and DRM transmission thus leaving no bandwidth for private participation. Therefore to promote private participation, it is suggested that AIR provides mono transmission instead of stereo transmission during transition to DRM and share additional bandwidth for mono channel with the private players. The technical feasibility of an independent mono private channel should be evaluated from a quality and coverage perspective. In case, it is not technically feasible to have an independent mono channel for private participation then AIR should explore time sharing mechanism with private players to increase the uptake of DRM and develop the receiver eco-system.
 
Decision on switching SW to DRM to meet international coverage should only be considered once the eco-system for DRM is developed in other countries. Since AIR has no control over the development of receiver eco-system in other countries, it should not migrate from SW to DRM.
 
Given the popularity of the FM, AIR should continue to increase the coverage of FM from 43% to 65%. Once the DRM eco-system is stabilized, AIR can consider migration of FM to DRM+.
 
Transitioning to DRM from MW will deliver improved quality of transmission and annual  saving of ~INR 185 Cr. of opex towards maintenance and operations and an additional capital expenditure of INR 697 Cr. planned towards developing the DRM infrastructure.
 
However, the receiver eco-system for DRM is under-developed and therefore to foster investment in receiver eco-system, AIR should promote private participation by sharing the DRM infrastructure with Private Operators. The details of the sharing mechanism and analysis are provided in Section 5.6.
 
The Group on Technology acknowledges that the current procurement process at Prasar Bharati is time consuming and has not been able to keep pace with the development of technology. The Group recommends flexibility in procurement process to reduce time to procure. The details of the proposed process are provided in Section 5.7.
 
The Group on Technology, Prasar Bharati recommends that the choice of technology for content production and storage should be customised based on the needs of content strategy. The content strategy would define the quality and complexity of the product design which will further define the choice of technology. However, it is critical that the technology choice for content creation and storage caters to HD content delivery, delivery across multi-platforms, allow for tapeless workflows and interactivity. The details of the analysis are provided in Section 5.7.


Recommendations
 
For AIR, the Group on Technology recommends to continue with SW to meet international coverage. and to transition to DRM from MW to meet the National and Regional coverage.This will meet the public service objective of AIR. Expansion of FM to increase regional coverage from 43% to 65% should only be carried out on the basis of commercial feasibility. Transitioning to DRM from MW will delivery improved quality of transmission and annual saving of ~INR 185 Cr. of opex towards maintenance and operations and an additional capital expenditure of INR 697 Cr. planned towards developing the DRM infrastructure. However the receiver eco-system for DRM is under-developed and therefore to foster investment in receiver eco-system, AIR should promote private participation by sharing the DRM infrastructure with Private Operators.

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