NEW DELHI: Doordarshan may soon have dedicated content for youth and kids on Indian mythologies and contemporary literature.
The move comes as public broadcaster Prasar Bharati plans to commercialise its idle channels.
Currently, there is no focussed content for children and youth. There would be a focus on building franchises around native content and create commercial value for the content through fixed time windows.
There are 11 regional channels which lack original content and are latent for the major part of the day. The broadcaster is planning to utilise these slots in order to enhance its revenue generation.
The content generated would try to integrate 'Indian values' into its programmes by tapping on to mythologies and contemporary literature.
"There is a strong body of thought that most of the kids’ content, especially animation, is not Indian. Largely, it is borrowed from the West. There is a very strong need for a body of Indian content which has to be much larger. We should be able to export this so that the Indian message goes across the world," said S S Vempati, CEO, Prasar Bharati.
"If Kung Fu Panda becomes the way in which China exercises soft power and influences minds across the world or say The Lord of the Rings... it can be done in the Indian context," he added.
The idea would be to create a franchise around it, including games and animation which will have 'innately Indian' characteristics.
The broadcaster is planning to commission content and auction a dedicated three-hour slot which would be called 'DD Kids' or 'DD Youth'. The programmes would be dubbed in multiple languages to create commercial value.
The proposal of monetising the channels will come before the Prasar Bharati board during its next meeting.
The broadcaster has eight private channels to the Free Dish channels. These include movies, music and regional entertainment channels. The slots were auctioned on Friday.