India’s public broadcaster, Prasar Bharati, has phased out all analogue terrestrial transmitters except 50 installed at “strategic locations”, Information and Broadcasting Minister Anurag Thakur has said.

Prasar Bharati operates the public television service Doordarshan and All India Radio.

In 2017, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) recommended introducing digital terrestrial transmission for broadcast services in a phased manner and a complete shutdown of analogue transmission by the end of 2023.

It noted that analogue terrestrial TV broadcasting was being phased out world over due to “poor quality of reception, inefficient use of spectrum and obsolescence of analogue technologies”.

TRAI said Prasar Bharati had 1,412 analogue transmitters and 16 digital terrestrial broadcasting transmitters as on 31 January 2017.

Speaking at an event in New Delhi, Mr Thakur also said the DD Free Dish, a direct-to-home (DTH) satellite television service launched by Prasar Bharati in 2004, had reached over 43 million homes by early 2022, The Economic Times reports.