TV’s popular characters feature in MIB’s Public Awareness Campaign for DAS-II

To promote, educate and inform audiences in India about the second phase of digitization, four leading Hindi General Entertainment Channels – Zee TV, Star Plus, Colors and Sony – have come together to create PSAs featuring their most popular protagonists. Well known actors, Mahima Makhwala and Roopal Tyagi (Rachana & Gunjan from Zee TV’s Sapne Suhane Ladakpan Ke), Deepika Singh and Anas Rashid (Sandhya and Sooraj from Star Plus’ Diya Aur Baati Hum), Deepika Samson (Simar from Colors’ Sasural Simar Ka) and Shivaji Satam (ACP Pradyuman from Sony’s C.I.D), and have been roped into announce Phase –II DAS in India. In the PSAs, the actors will announce that 1 April 2013 is the cut-off date where digitisation will be completed in 38 cities.  

The Task Force constituted by Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) for Phase-II DAS has paved the way for the rollout of digital addressable system (DAS) II in 38 cities in India. The four metros – Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata and Chennai – were part of the first phase of digitisation. The MIB is confident of meeting the 1 April, 2013 deadline for cable TV digitisation in 38 more cities in the second phase of digitisation that covers the one million plus cities across the country, including Pune, Nagpur, Nashik, Aurangabad and Thane, among others.

MIB’s Public Awareness Campaign for DAS-II includes two television advertisements i.e. “Nukkad Natak” (30 secs) and “Jadugar” (40 secs). IBF members have been requested to carry these commercials at least 8 times per day (including primetime) with immediate effect. The MIB has also requested IBF to inform the schedule of genre wise switch off in consultation with MSOs specifying the genre and the date. The schedule is as follows: 

·         Cut off  English movie Channels with effect from 10th March, 2013, from 11.00 pm onward

·         Cut off Hindi/respective* Regional Movie Channels with effect from 15th March, 2013, from 11.00  pm onward

·         Cut off news (English, Hindi, respective* Regional and Business) Channels with effect from 18th March, 2013, from 11.00 pm onward

·         Cut off Hindi/respective* Regional GECs with effect from  22nd March, 2013, from 11.00 pm onward

[*respective regional channel -- for eg. Howrah – Bangla, Amritsar – Punjabi, Coimbatore – Tamil, etc.,]

Under DAS, it is necessary for all television households to have digital set-top boxes that decode the transmission signals.