NEW DELHI: Prasar Bharati today announced that Indian Administrative Service officers Naveen Kumar and Brajeshwar Singh have been appointed the 
director-generals of Doordarshan and All India Radio, respectively.

 
Announcing the appointments, Prasar Bharati CEO KS Sarma said that with this both the organizations would have full-time DGs and he can be free to pursue the broader vision of India's pubcaster Prasar Bharati.

According to Sarma, the organization is negotiating with distributors and platforms in the US and the UK for beaming of DD international channel as also Indian language channels in Punjabi, Telugu, Gujarati amongst others.

Prasar Bharati would hold parleys with the Rupert Murdoch-controlled BSkyB in the UK for the carriage of DD channels and the talks are expected to be held next week in London when Sarma and other ministry officials go there.

For the carriage of DD channels abroad, global tenders had been floated four times. In the US, Globescat has the rights for distributing DD India (the international channel) on DTH and cable systems. As part of this deal, Prasar Bharati is earning $ 80,000 per year, Sarma said.

As part of another expansion process, Prasar Bharati has decided to start two classical music radio channels in Lucknow and Bangalore from 26 January. Alongside, a 24-hour news channel on radio would also be launched on Republic Day. Additionally, more language programming would be introduced for Delhi listeners, said Sarma.

Commenting on external services division of All India Radio, Sarma said it has been decided by the board in a recent meeting that some external services should be shut as the ministry of external affairs is supposed to bear the expenses which is "not happening" at the moment.