CWG: Prasar Bharti earns Rs 58.19 cr

Belying expectations, Prasar Bharti has earned only Rs 58.19 crore (Rs 581.9 million) as revenue during the Commonwealth Games last month.

The gross revenue earned by PB on account of telecasting/broadcasting of advertisements on Doordarshan channel and All India Radio during coverage of the Commonwealth Games is Rs 58.17 crore, Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting S Jagathrakshakan informed the Lok Sabha on Tuesday.

While AIR earned Rs 2.18 crore (Rs 21.8 million), Doordarshan garnered Rs 55.99 crore (Rs 559.9 million) as revenue, he said. Prasar Bharati had earlier said it knew in advance that the recently concluded Commonwealth Games, for which Doordarshan was the official broadcaster, would not bring in huge advertising revenues.

The official broadcaster was forced to reduce advertising revenue target from Rs 200 crore (Rs 2 billion) to Rs 100 crore (Rs 1 billion),

Notably, DD was not allowed to air advertisements during the closing ceremony of the CWG Games following complaints that the opening ceremony had been shown deferred live to accommodate advertisements.

After a successful opening ceremony, DD had hiked ad spot rates for the closing ceremony to Rs 2.5 lakh for a ten second spot as compared with Rs 90,000 for the same in the opening of the CWG.