Riding on the back of quality content and digital first approach, Prasar Bharati’s digital platforms from the southern region of India have come a long way in just over a couple of years.

While DD Chandana (Karnataka) has become the first from the region to achieve one million subscribers milestone on YouTube, DD Saptagiri (Andhra Pradesh) and DD Yadagiri (Telangana) are swiftly marching towards Half a million landmark.

With more than 100,000 YouTube subscribers each, Tamil and Malayalam news units and Kendras of Doordarshan are in healthy competition with each other and with the local language media industry.

Most watched videos on these YouTube channels range from comedy and telefilms to celebrity interviews and educational content.

Among the national channels of Doordarshan, international English news channel DD India has recently crossed the landmark of 100,000 subscribers on YouTube, thanks to unique content narrating the India story, specially designed for the youth and global audience.

‘Analog Phase Out Part of B’cast Reforms’: Of late the Indian pubcaster Prasar Bharati has been focusing a lot on digital presence and also going digital with its terrestrial networks.

Keeping that in view, it said closure of analog transmission of its networks is being done to keep pace with time and technology, which, in turn, would create new all-rounnd opportunities.

Rolling-out broadcasting reforms at Doordarshan (DD) and All India Radio (AIR) over last couple of years, Prasar Bharati has been swiftly phasing out obsolete broadcasting technologies like analog terrestrial TV transmitters, marking a shift to emerging technologies and new content opportunities, the network has said.

Prasar Bharati has clarified that many DD centres that were being deemed to be shuttered, would continue to generate content for broadcasting on the satellite channels of Doordarshan dedicated to their respective States, apart from maintaining presence on the digital media via YouTube and social media platforms.