| Major Landmarks in the History of Doordarshan (1959 to 1999) | |
| Year | Achieved Landmarks |
| 1959 September 15th | Experimental transmission from Delhi |
| 1961 October 24th | School Television for Delhi students |
| 1965 August 15th | Regular service with a daily news bulletin in Hindi |
| 1967 January 26th | Krishi Darshan - programmes for farmers |
| 1972 October 2nd | TV in a second city - Bombay (now Mumbai) |
| 1975 August 1st | Satellite Instructional TV Experiment launched |
| 1976 January 1st | Commercials introduced |
| 1976 April 1st | Doordarshan delinked from All India Radio |
| 1982 August 15th | National Programmes; Colour transmission and networking through satellite |
| 1982 November 19th | Expansion through LPTs launched |
| 1984 July 15th | First mass appeal serial Hum Log |
| 1984 August 15th | Country-wide Classroom of UGC launched |
| 1984 August 9th | Second channel at Delhi |
| 1986 August 9th | First regional satellite network in Maharashtra |
| 1987 February 23rd | Morning transmissions |
| 1989 January 26th | Afternoon transmission |
| 1993 April 1st | Metro Channel with satellite networking |
| 1993 October 1st | Regional Language Satellite Channels |
| 1994 August 15th | Restructuring of Channels - DD-1 to DD-13 |
| 1995 March 14th | DD-India-International Channel |
| 1997 November 23rd | Prasar Bharati - the autonomous Broadcasting Corporation of India |
| 1999 March 18th | DD-Sports channel inaugurated |
| 1999 July 10th | News on the hour |
| 1999 August 15th | DD-News & CA Channel (test transmission) |
