Dear Colleagues,
I wish you and your family a great 2020. May the New Year bring the best of tidings.
With your support, public service broadcasting has taken significant strides on the content innovation front. I am glad to appreciate your effort in bringing synergy between Doordarshan and All India Radio to create new content products and to leverage language amplification capabilities. For the first time, cricket commentary was made accessible using sign language commentary during the ICC Cricket World Cup.
It is appropriate to note the commencement of Digital Radio Services in 2019 through DRM featuring Cricket, Budget, Election results. News Service Division of All India Radio deserves a special mention for launching a 24*7 Radio News stream, that is available on DRM as well as DTH platform.
I am delighted to congratulate all of you for several measures that we have undertaken to further the cause of public service broadcasting including the launch of 11 regional channels on DD FreeDish platform, DD Arunprabha channel dedicated to North East region and successful launch of various in-house programmes. I would also congratulate DD News, which is nation's most credible and authentic source of news, for its dedicated English news channel DD India, which is one of the top performing channels in its genre.
It is a matter of great pleasure to celebrate our success on digital front in year 2019. Some of the rarest audio-visual footages from our Archives have also been digitised and made public. For the first time, the Public Radio Network across India has also been made digitally available through our Mobile App featuring more than 200 Live streams in 50 Indian and Foreign languages. Your support has ensured that the General Election Counting Day live coverage in multiple languages by Doordarshan marked the highest viewership on YouTube during the year 2019.
Also I must congratulate the newly launched Prasar Bharati News services team for marking its digital presence.
I look forward to your continued support to Public Service Broadcasting in India through the year 2020 and the years to come.
With best regards,
Yours sincerely,
( Shashi Shekhar Vempati )