NEW DELHI: In what is termed a bid to strengthen its marketing efforts, national broadcaster Doordarshan has brought in former Zee Telefilms CEO Vijay Jindal to head its newly constituted marketing advisory committee. 

The committee will be headquartered in New Delhi and will have Jindal as chairman, with Sunit Duggal, Jagdeep Bakshi, Murad Ali Baig, Roda Mehta, Satish Mehta as the other marketing / advertising experts on the committee. The Doordarshan deputy director general (commercial) and deputy director-general (audience research) will also be on the committee with DD's director (commercial) as the convener of the committee.

The committee is supposed to make recommendations to the director-general on various issues and policies relating to marketing of Doordarshan and its positioning in the competitive broadcasting field The committee will meet from time to time and give suggestions on evolving an effective marketing strategy for Doordarshan. It will also evolve a framework for positioning of DD Channels as a brand and advise on effective advertising and publicity campaigns, a Prasar Bharati release states.

DD must be hoping the 44-year-old former Zee bossman and Times Group CEO, who is an organisational and management whiz, with a good handle on corporate finances, and has proved his mettle as an entrepreneur, will be able reshape the pubcaster, and give it that chutzpah needed to compete in a multichannel environment. 

In recent years, Doordarshan has been placing enormous importance on marketing of its programmes. It has already set up marketing divisions in Mumbai (2000), Chennai (2001) and Bangalore (2002). These units market programmes produced, owned or acquired by Doordarshan. Nearly a third of the programmes on the National Network and half of the programmes on the regional service are produced in house by the Doordarshan Kendras. Plans are afoot to open marketing offices in Delhi, Kolkata, Hyderabad and Thiruvananthapuram also in the near future.

DD has already set up a creative advisory committee under the chairmanship of Alyque Padamsee.