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A Golden Goose of
Indian Television
Television in India has been in
existence for nigh on four decades. For the first 17 years, it spread
haltingly and transmission was mainly in black & white. The thinkers and
policy makers of the country, which had just been liberated from centuries
of colonial rule, frowned upon television, looking on at it as a luxury
Indians could do without. In 1955 a Cabinet decision was taken disallowing
any foreign investments in print media which has since been followed
religiously for nearly 45 years. Sales of TV sets, as reflected by
licences issued to buyers were just 676,615 until 1977.
Television has come to the forefront only in the
past 21 years and more so in the past 13. There were initially
two ignition points: the first in the eighties when colour TV was
introduced by state-owned broadcaster Doordarshan (DD) timed with the
1982 Asian Games which India hosted. It then proceeded to install
transmitters nationwide rapidly for terrestrial broadcasting. In this
period no private enterprise was allowed to set up TV stations or to
transmit TV signals.
The second spark came in the early nineties with the broadcast of
satellite TV by foreign programmers like CNN followed by Star TV and a
little later by domestic channels such as Zee TV and Sun TV into Indian
homes. Prior to this, Indian viewers had to make do with DD’s chosen fare
which was dull, non-commercial in nature, directed towards only education
and socio-economic development. Entertainment programmes were few and far
between. And when the solitary few soaps like Hum Log (1984), and
mythological dramas: Ramayan (1987-88) and Mahabharat (1988-89) were
televised, millions of viewers stayed glued to their sets
When, urban Indians learnt that it was possible to watch the Gulf War on
television, they rushed out and bought dishes for their homes. Others
turned entrepreneurs and started offering the signal to their neighbours
by flinging cable over treetops and verandahs. From the large metros
satellite TV delivered via cable moved into smaller towns, spurring the
purchase of TV sets and even the up gradation from black & white to colour
TVs.
DD responded to this satellite TV invasion by launching an
entertainment and commercially driven channel and introduced entertainment
programming on its terrestrial network. This again fuelled the purchase of
sets in the hinterlands where cable TV was not available.
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The initial success of the channels had a
snowball effect: more foreign programmers and
Indian entrepreneurs flagged off their own versions. From two
channels prior to 1991, Indian viewers were exposed to more than 50
channels by 1996. Software producers emerged to cater to the programming
boom almost overnight. Some talent came from the film industry, some from
advertising and some from journalism. |
More and more people set up networks until
there was a time in 1995-96 when an estimated 60,000 cable operators
existed in the country. Some of them had subscriber bases as low as 50 to
as high as in the thousands. Most of the networks could relay just 6 to 14
channels as higher channel relaying capacity required heavy investments,
which cable operators were loathe to make. American and European cable
networks evinced interest, as well as large Indian business groups, who
set up sophisticated head ends capable of delivering more than 30
channels. These multi-system operators (MSOs) started buying up local
networks or franchising cable TV feeds to the smaller operators for a fee.
This phenomenon led to resistance from smaller cable operators who
joined forces and started functioning as MSOs. The net outcome was that
the number of cable operators in the country has fallen to 30,000.
The rash of players who rushed to set up
satellite channels discovered that advertising revenue was not large
enough to support them. This led to a shakeout. At least half a dozen
either folded up or aborted the high-flying plans they had drawn up, and
started operating in a restricted manner. Some of them converted their
channels into basic subscription services charging cable operators a
carriage fee. Foreign cable TV MSOs discovered that the cable TV market
was too disorganised for them to operate in and at least three of them
decided to postpone their plans and got out of the market..
The government started taxing cable operators in
a bid to generate revenue. The rates varied in the 26 states
that go to form India and ranged from 35 per cent upwards. The authorities
moved in to regulate the business and a Cable TV Act was passed in
1995. The apex court in the country, the Supreme Court, passed a
judgement that the air waves are not the property of the Indian government
and any Indian citizen wanting to use them should be allowed to do so. The
government reacted by making efforts to get some regulation in place by
setting up committees to suggest what the broadcasting law of India should
be, as the sector was still being governed by laws which were passed in
19th century India. A broadcasting bill was drawn up in 1997 and
introduced in parliament. But it was not passed into an Act. State-owned
telecaster Doordarshan and radiocaster All India Radio were brought under
a holding company called the Prasar Bharati under an act that had been
gathering dust for seven years, the Prasar Bharati Act, 1990. The
Act served to give autonomy to the broadcasters as their management was
left to a supervisory board consisting of retired professionals and
bureaucrats.
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A committee headed by a senior Congress (I)
politician Sharad Pawar and consisting of other politicians and
industrialist was set up to review the contents of the Broadcasting
Bill. It held discussions with industry, politicians, and consumers
and a report was even drawn up. But the United Front government fell
and since then the report and the Bill have been consigned to the
dustbin. But before that it issued a ban on the sale of Ku-band dishes
and on digital direct-to-home Ku-band broadcasting, which the
Rupert Murdoch-owned News Television
was threatening to start in India. ISkyB, the Murdoch DTH
venture, has since been wallowing in quicksand and in recent times has
even shed a lot of employees. But News Corp has been running a C-band
DTH venture in the country which has around 20,000 subscribers. |
In 1999, a BJP-led government has been
threatening to once again allow DTH Ku-band broadcasting and it has been
talking of dismantling the Prasar Bharati and once again reverting
Doordarshan’s and All India Radio’s control back in the government’s
hands. Some things change only to remain the same.
2000 - KBC STRATEGIC
POSITIONING IN STAR PLUS
The year 2000 will be remembered for a single show that dominated the
Indian television industry and went on to switch the fortunes of some
media companies. Kaun Banega Crorepati, the Amitabh Bachchan hosted game
show based on Who Wants to be a Millionaire, not only became the
most-watched programme on private satellite television but also
catapaulted Star Plus into leadership position.
On the back of the success of Star Plus,
Rupert Murdoch built his media empire. If Subhash Chandra had tasted
success all through these years since Zee launched, 2000 was a turning
point in Zee’s history. Chandra’s dream of creating a media company
that would march into the convergence era faced severe threat and the
internal weakness of his organisation stood exposed. It was clearly Murdoch’s year. After
divorcing his business from Zee, his Star Group acquired a 26 per cent
stake in the Rajan Raheja-owned Hathway Cable & Datacom for an estimated
$50-60 million. This marked a re-entry of Murdoch into cable after selling
his 50 per cent stake in Chandra’s Siticable and gave him a presence in a
cable network which had around one million subscribers.
Sony Entertainment Television, which was competing fiercely against Zee at
the time, also floundered as it came under the attack from three Star Plus programmes - Bachchan’s show which gave away prize money of Rs 10 million,
flanked by the Balaji Telefilms’ produced soaps Kyunki saas bhi kabhie
bahu thi and Kahaani ghar ghar kii.
A Golden Goose Of Indian Television - Continued
Contributed By :
Saumendra Das, Asst. Professor, Aditya
Institute Of Technology And Management; Tekkali (A.P.)
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