What does the public get for its money? A poor return on investment. Watch the cricket telecast on DD National; imagine a man’s morning stubble — preferably Dhoni’s — under an electric shaver. Result? A hazy picture with the hum of a snore. Good, faithful Doordarshan with its unshaven look as though it has just woken up.

How to explain this continued poor quality transmission — now you see it, now you don’t — even though DD National is on the primary cable band along with all the most popular channels? How can DD ever win a sports telecast like this? It can’t, so it forces other channels to share broadcast rights by a Government fiat.

None of the private satellite TV channels could continue in business wearing Dhoni’s morning-after look. It’s about inattentiveness to detail. The lip synch on a serial such as Ehsaas hears characters speak what their lips say two seconds later — or the other way around.

And their serials look like they’ve just shaken off the mothballs. Old, like Buniyaad (Sahara One); but Buniyaad is old and on a repeat telecast. These serials are all new featuring an undistinguished cast of has or never-beens.

And, from what we saw, DD is the only channel to still broadcast the Harpic commercial which invites you into the lavatory for a close up of a dirty Indian toilet over lunch. Meanwhile, satellite channels carry a Coke ad — where rather than cleaning toilets you whistle at (and with) Aishwarya Rai.

‘‘End of anera’’ (!?) read the headline on DD National’s Wednesday evening prime time bulletin as it announced the news of actor Raj Kumar’s death. There was a cheery-faced young lady by the name of Nisha Narayanan who delivered the bad news and the sad news with equal good cheer. Raj Kumar’s fans may have wished for a little more sobriety but Nisha was doggedly chirpy. In the clips that followed, several people spoke, but Doordarshan still believes in witholding identities so if you didn’t recognise Deve Gowda you’d have missed his eulogy.

Switch to the afternoon. There are well-meaning attempts to provide wholesome entertainment to children. This can take the form of last Thursday’s Kidz Island (since when is it considered chic to deliberately misspell a word?): a little girl, perhaps no more than four, in a lehenga danced to ‘‘Kajre mohabbat wale...’’, her hips thrust out like a dance bar girl. Next time it will be to ‘‘Kajra re.’ Should the public service broadcaster be encouraging little children to dance like Bipasha Basu?

Same night listen to Baba Sehgal singing at the World Bhangra Concert. Sounded like he was exhorting us to ‘‘Pump up your thigh’’ and maybe he was because his were, forgive, the analogy, pumped up rather like new tyres, or rather like Salman Khan’s biceps as captured on camera when the film star emerged from the Jodhpur jail. Also, the support cast was on the wrong show: instead of bhangra it was performing a gym workout.

All of this is typical of DD. Not sure of itself and its USP. Who cares? It’s not like anyone who matters is watching. Those who do watch it don’t matter. Seems it’s really there to promote the National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme (which it does wonderfully well), other Government initiatives, polio drops and other healthy causes that the commercial channels would never touch.

Good but the time has come for Doordarshan to choose a role: is it a general entertainment national channel, a government spokesperson or a channel for all those who do not receive satellite TV? Even within the latter, there are those who don’t receive satellite TV and cannot afford it or those who can receive it, afford it but don’t want to watch it. Catering to the two is a very different matter. Maybe DD National should concentrate on the first category instead of trying to be all things to everybody and ending up being nothing to all of us.