Television in India
There are several commercial television broadcasters such as Culver Max Entertainment (Sony Pictures Networks), Disney Star, Viacom18 (owned by Reliance Industries through Network18 Group), Warner Bros.
Since 2019, free-to-air Hindi channels like Dangal and Goldmines have drastically increased in popularity due to their availability on DD Free Dish.
[1] Unlike most other countries, major Indian entertainment channels do not air news, with some exceptions in South India like Sun TV and ETV.
In January 1950, The Indian Express reported that a television was put up for demonstration at an exhibition in the Teynampet locality of Chennai (formerly Madras) by B. Sivakumaran, a student of electrical engineering.
In 1952, the government's Scientific Advisory Committee for Broadcasting recommended the creation of a pilot station to showcase television's potential to viewers.
[6] An experiment was conducted at the American Pavillion of the 1955 Indian Industries Fair, which opened on 29 October 1955, with PM Nehru being the first face to appear on television in India.
[15] The Prasar Bharati Corporation was established to serve as the public service broadcaster of the country which would achieve its objectives through AIR and Doordashan.
Hindi film songs-based programmes like Chitrahaar, Rangoli, Superhit Muqabla and crime thrillers like Karamchand, Byomkesh Bakshi.
Shows targeted at children included Divyanshu Ki Kahaniyan, Vikram Aur Betaal, Malgudi Days, and Tenali Rama.
It is also noted that Bengali filmmaker Prabir Roy had the distinction of introducing colour television coverage in India in February–March 1982 during the Nehru Cup, a football tournament which was held at Eden Gardens, Kolkata, with five on-line camera operation, before Doordarshan started the same during the 1982 Asian Games in November that year.
[18] The central government, under the leadership of the Congress, launched a series of economic and social reforms in 1991 under the then-Prime Minister P. V. Narasimha Rao.
India now has over 850 TV channels (2018) covering all the main languages spoken in the nation and whereby 197 million households own televisions.
In October 1992, India saw the launch of Zee TV, the first privately owned Indian channel to broadcast over cable followed by the Asia Television Network (ATN).
CAS, or conditional access system, is a digital mode of transmitting TV channels through a set-top box (STB).
The idea of CAS was mooted in 2001, due to a furore over charge hikes by channels and subsequently by cable operators.
Poor reception of certain channels; arbitrary pricing and increase in prices; bundling of channels; poor service delivery by Cable Television Operators (CTOs); monopolies in each area; lack of regulatory framework and redress avenues were some of the issues that were to be addressed by implementation of CAS It was decided by the government that CAS would be first introduced in the four metros.
The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting issued a notification on 11 November 2011, setting 31 March 2015 as the deadline for complete shift from analogue to digital systems.
[31][32][33] The Ministry had initially threatened to cancel the licence of multi system operators (MSOs) in Kolkata if they did not switch off all analogue channels.
However, the ministries softened their stand following a letter from MSOs, explaining how they were sandwiched between divergent orders from the Central and State Governments.
[38] A similar petition, filed by a local cable operator (LCO), to extend the deadline in Mumbai was rejected by the Bombay High Court on 31 October 2012.
As of 2012, India has the most competitive Direct-broadcast satellite market, with 7 operators vying for more than 135 million TV homes.
[47] The rapid growth of DTH in India has propelled an exodus from cabled homes, and the need to measure viewership in this space is more than ever; aMap, the overnight ratings agency, has mounted a people meter panel to measure viewership and interactive engagement in DTH homes in India.
[53] In 1997, a joint industry body appointed TAM (backed by Nielsen Corporation[54]) as the official recordkeeper of audience metrics.
In 2001, a confidential list of households in Mumbai that were participating in the monitoring survey was released, calling into question the reliability of the data.
[58] For several years after this, despite misgivings about the process, sample and other parameters, TAM was the de-facto standard and monopoly in the audience metrics game.
[59] In 2004, a rival ratings service funded by American NRI investors, called Audience Measurement Analytics Limited (AMAP) was launched.
[64] Guided by the recommendations of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) and Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) notifications of January 2014, BARC India brings together the three key stakeholders in television audience measurement – broadcasters, advertisers, and advertising and media agencies, via their apex bodies.
BARC India is committed to establishing a robust, transparent and accountable governance framework for providing data points that are required to plan media spending more effectively.
[62][65] The role of television media was especially crucial in 2020 as citizens were asked to stay home to fight the pandemic in India.
Talking about how media was used as a tool to instil fear and discipline among the public in India during the lockdown, an article in the Doing Sociology blog discusses how television has so become part and parcel of life, the audio-visual platform was used for image-building and influence by the ruling dispensation on one hand, and utilized by popular brands for keeping the consumer culture up on the other.
