Mapping India's television landscape: constitutive dimensions and emerging issues

Abstract

Over the last few decades, the Indian television sector has experienced a profound transformation with regard to policies, players, production and practices. Exploring this altered landscape, this essay argues that the present television landscape in India represents a heterogeneous, ‘rhizomatic’ formation characterized by complex constitutive dimensions that simultaneously reflect both the forces of media globalization and local, contextually rooted elements and realities. These dimensions include the primacy of the market and the growing alliances between global and local media companies (which mimic global trends) on the one hand, and the dominance of limited formats, the film industry's invasion of televisual space, the meteoric rise of the regional in television and the paradoxical condition of the public broadcaster which combines massive reach with a viewership confined increasingly to poorer, rural audiences (which variously represent the specificities of the Indian situation) on the other.

Keywords:

• Indian television
• transformation
• global
• local
• heterogeneous

Notes

1. Sonwalker, ‘Television in India’.

2. Gupta, Switching Channels, 19.

3. Williams, Television.

4. Kumar, Gandhi Meets Primetime.

5. Rajagopal, ‘Rise of National Programming’, 92.

6. Kumar, ‘Indian Personality for Television’.

7. Sonwalker, ‘Television in India’, 120.

8. FICCI/KPMG, ‘Back in the Spotlight’.

9. Fiske, Television Culture.

10. Deleuze and Guattari, Thousand Plateaus.

11. Kumar, ‘Indian Personality for Television?’.

12. Indian Council of Media Research, ‘Case Studies’.

13. Sinha, ‘TV Channels Bloom’.

14. Indian Brand Equity Foundation, ‘Media and Entertainment’.

15. TAM India, ‘Tam Trends Report’.

16. Chadha and Kavoori, ‘Beyond the Global/Local’.

17. It is important to note that while the advent of satellite television enhanced this trend, Doordarshan had already begun to lease time to private producers in the 1980s with the rise of sponsored programmes such as Hum Log and between 1980–1981 and 1990–1991, Doordarshan's advertising revenues increased 31 times, from Rs. 80.8 million to Rs. 2.53 billion. By 1990, advertising already accounted for 70% of Doordarshan's expenditure. See relevant figures in Nalin Mehta, India on Television, chapter 4.

18. Ramachandran, ‘Government Probes Television Ratings System’.

19. FICCI/KPMG, ‘Back in the Spotlight’.

20. Ernst & Young, ‘What's Next for Indian Media and Entertainment’.

21. Indian Brand Equity Foundation, ‘Entertainment’.

22. Mehra, ‘Dhoni Effect’.

23. Magder, ‘End of TV 101’.

24. Mitra, Television in India.

25. Bansal, ‘Decade in Media’.

26. Narang, ‘Growth for Colors & Sony’.

27. FICCI/KPMG, ‘Back in the Spotlight’.

28. Timmons, ‘In India, Reality TV Catches on, with Some Qualms’.

29. Dhar, ‘NCW Favours Law to Control TV Programmes’.

30. Gitlin, ‘Prime Time Ideology’.

31. Behura, ‘After Bollywood’.

32. Pinglay, ‘Bollywood Stars Flock to Receive a TV Reality Cheque’.

33. ‘Item Numbers Spicing Up the Small Screen Too’.

34. Straubhaar, ‘Beyond Media Imperialism’; Chadha and Kavoori, ‘Beyond the Global/Local’.

35. Kumar, Gandhi Meets Primetime, 9.

36. FICCI/KPMG, ‘Back in the Spotlight’.

37. Dasgupta, ‘Going Native’.

38. Shashidhar, ‘Big Race for Regional Space’.

39. Srivastava, ‘Channels of Profit’.

40. ‘Soni Reaffirms Commitment to Public Broadcasting’.

41. ‘Digital TV Growth in India Driven by Rural Market’.