DD hikes ad rates for news channel

Prasar Bharati has revised the advertising rates for DD News by hiking spot buys by 66 per cent and packages by around 20 per cent.

The new rate card came into effect from April 1, 2004. The earlier rate card for DD News was introduced in November last year.

The move is prompted by a higher demand for spots on DD News. Against a revenue target of Rs 2 crore (Rs 20 million), DD News was able to attract advertisements worth Rs 9-10 crore (Rs 90-100 million) since November. Prasar Bharati has managed Rs 2 crore advertising revenue for election related programmes alone.

In the new rate card, spot buy rates have been hiked to Rs 5,000 per 10 seconds from Rs 3,000 for prime time and to Rs 3,000 per 10 seconds  from Rs 2,000 for non-prime time.

The prime time band has been extended by one hour. It will now run from 6.30 pm to 11.30 pm as against 7 pm to 11 pm earlier and offer a bigger spread to advertisers.

Prasar Bharati has also impacted a 50 per cent increase in the rates for sponsored programmes -- from Rs 10,000 to Rs 15,000 for prime time and from Rs 5,000 to Rs 7,500 for non-prime time.

For stock branding and ticker branding, the rates have been hiked to Rs 5,00,000 per month as against Rs 2,00,000 earlier.

 "DD News was facing a problem of plenty. The most important thing to be addressed was to devise a strategy to reduce clutter of advertisements, especially in prime time programmes," said Sanjiv Datta, additional director general (news).

 "Many advertisers prefer packages only during specific events, otherwise they go for prime time spot buys. So we can shore up our revenues through this," he added.

According to a statement from the state broadcaster, new advertisers such as State Bank of India and Kodak have already signed up Rs 75 lakh (Rs 7.5 million) and Rs 25 lakh (Rs 2.5 million) worth spots, respectively, for three months.

 "We have been able to sell spots on election programmes for Rs 10,000 per 10 seconds, which is three-four times the normal rates," said Vijayalakshmi Chhabra, marketing director, Prasar Bharati.