15 September, 2015 marks 56 years to the day when Indian public broadcaster Doordarshan (DD) was first launched with an experimental telecast starting in Delhi in 1959 with a small transmitter and a make shift studio.

The regular daily transmission started in 1965 as a part of All India Radio (AIR) and that’s when DD too began a five-minute news bulletin. The television service was extended to Bombay (now Mumbai) and Amritsar in 1972. Up to 1975, only seven Indian cities had a television service and Doordarshan remained the sole provider of television in India. Krishi Darshan was the first program telecast on Doordarshan. It commenced on 26 January, 1967 and is one of the longest running programs on Indian television.

Television services were separated from radio on 1 April, 1976. Each office of AIR and DD were placed under the management of two separate director generals (DG) in New Delhi.

Finally, in 1982, DD came into being as a National Broadcaster. National telecasts were introduced in 1982. In the same year, colour TV was introduced in the Indian market with the live telecast of the Independence Day speech by the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi on 15 August, 1982, followed by the 1982 Asian Games, which were held in Delhi.

Since then, DD has seen growth in many ways. Today, DD broadcasts in 17 languages including DD Urdu, and has the country’s only free-to-air (FTA) sports channel. DD Bharati has kept alive the decades-old archives of broadcasting in the country, DD India reaches almost the entire world and is watched by the diaspora, and it also recently launched DD Kisan, which is a dedicated channel for farmers. In addition, DD News – barring a few aberrations – remains one of the most dependable news channels in the country.

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