Crest Communications has a difficult task on hand. It is responsible for the packaging and look of the three month old DD Bharati, the channel that curently has an average of 90 minutes of original programming a day.

Conceived as a complete cultural infotainment channel, Bharati started off with promises of fresh software induction, but currently, over 90 per cent of the programming on Bharati is between five to seven years old.

Says Crest Communications COO North Reena Asok, Bharati's three-point focus of health (in the morning), kids (afternoon) and art and culture (in the evening onwards) is being catered to by the various regional DD kendras as well as sundry national institutions linked to culture, art and science. All three segments are marked by distinct colour identities, while a uniform overall look is maintained for the entire channel, keeping in mind the 'one fabric, three threads' theme. While the animation major is responsible for the overall look, promos, channel IDs, segment IDs, bumpers there is another area where it has to do a lot of work - remastering and upgrading the tapes that are available for telecast, and recapsuling the available content.

According to Asok, because of the paucity of any worthwhile content, it is only the packaging that is helping to get in whatever little sampling of the channel that is on now.