New Doordarshan channel ‘DD Arunprabha’ planned for Northeast by Christmas this year

Aiming to reach out to more viewers in the northeast, public broadcaster Prasar Bharati is planning to launch by Christmas a new Doordarshan channel ‘DD Arunprabha’ in the region.

Officials told PTI that in a recent meeting, the Prasar Bharati board approved a proposal to launch the channel, which will focus primarily on the viewers of Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim but will have content for other states of the region as well.

It is expected that the channel will come up by December 25.

“The Board has cleared the decision. We expect to launch by December 25,” Prasar Bharati Chairperson A Surya Prakash said when contacted.

“We are very happy with this development as we want to pay greater attention to the northeast,” he added.

Doordarshan already runs a channel for the northeast region.

Sources said that a lot of programming content for ‘DD Arunprabha’ is already being planned by Doordarshan including a special show that focuses on the region’s diverse and delectable cuisine.

Another show is based on the monasteries in the region, while there will also be music and singing based reality shows including one that focuses on bands.

In addition there will be programmes on educational awareness, career counselling. There will be programmes on government’s programmes like startup India and Skill India etc.

Sources said a lot of programmes will be Hindi and English apart from the local languages, as the aim is to come up with a northeast channel which also has a national connect.

“We aim to reach the hearts of the people through vibrant content and a lot of out focus is centred on the youth,” DG Doordarshan Supriya Sahu said.

It is learnt that the channel will be uplinked from Itanagar and that a major part of the funding requirement will be met by the Centre.