Indian Television - Evolution, Global Comparison and Emerging Trends

Paper

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Indian Television - Evolution, Global Comparison and Emerging Trends

Samrat Dhar

Abstract

The Indian television industry has come a long way since its inception in 1959, in the way content is both produced and consumed as also the technological aspect of its delivery to a socioculturally diverse and vast audience. With a modest beginning through public broadcasting available to viewers only in Delhi to leapfrogging to an age of multi-national syndicated content and IPTV, the industry has seen exponential change in a relatively short period of time. This paper explores the history, transformation, emerging trends of the industry; and draws comparison with the global television industry, mostly American.

Introduction

Sometime in early 2017, the television audience in India surpassed 780 million people. That’s greater than the entire population of Europe, 741 million as per 2016 estimates. The number of households with a television set is up to 183 million from the earlier 154 million, according to a study conducted by BARC (Broadcast Audience Research Council) India implying an increase in TV penetration to 64% from an earlier estimate of 54% in 2013. This change is reflective of rapid electrification, prosperity and a public policy supportive of digitisation. But the present scenario of super-fast growth is a recent phenomenon having existed for only about a decade now. This period was preceded by an era of slow growth characterised by an urban only approach. Television in India had existed since the late 1950s but picked up only moderately in the 1970s and 80s and then transformed to robust growth in the new millennium backed by government initiative and the private sector’s acknowledgement of India as a mass market worthy of persuasion. In the process, the industry has witnessed and been affected by many cycles of content evolution, subscriber growth and consumer adoption of trends. The paper lays out a historical context of the television industry’s development in India, its experience with transforming content and audiences, and finds similarities, differences and influences with its peer industry in the United States. Finally it also examines the emerging trends for the industry and their impact on the existing ecosystem of consumers and content producers.

A Brief Historical Context 

Television was introduced in India by Doordarshan, the autonomous public service broadcaster founded by the Government of India in September 1959. As was the case with most countries with television broadcasting Doordarshan was initially a division run by All India Radio (AIR), the public radio broadcaster in India. It was only in 1976 that Doordarshan (abbreviated DD) was separated from AIR. Though formally introduced in 1959, regular daily transmission started for Delhi only in 1965, followed by Bombay (Mumbai) and Amritsar in 1972. Until 1975, only seven Indian cities had television service and DD remained the sole provider of television in India. The Asian Games of 1982 held in Delhi coincided with the introduction of colour TV to India and a temporary boom of TV set sales ensued, though mostly restricted to urban areas. Early national programming varied from home grown content based on social issues and mythological and historical shows to syndicated content from the west. All through the 80s and much of the first half of the 90s, Indian TV was dominated by the national public broadcaster that ran shows starring actors from the Hindi film industry (who found TV to be an exciting new medium) and shows sourced from major foreign networks such as NBC, ABC, BBC and MTV.

The central government launched a series of economic and social reforms in 1991 under Prime Minister Narsimha Rao. Under the new policies the government allowed private and foreign broadcasters to engage in limited operations in India. Foreign channels like CNN, STAR TV and private domestic channels such as ZEE TV, ETV and SUN TV started satellite broadcasts and this further paved the way for cable TV to make its foray into Indian homes. This was followed by an age of rapid expansion of the television industry with players emerging in every sub system from production companies and television manufacturers (foreign and domestic) to audience measurement companies and satellite service providers. The government’s continuance of a liberal broadcasting policy throughout the 90s opened the floodgates to a host of international networks who were keen on courting the urban Indian viewer with local versions of popular American and European TV shows. But it wasn't until the new millennium when the government set forth a fresh set of policy measures to allow for greater digitisation that TV truly became a mass consumption medium the adoption of which was led by rural India. The BARC India study estimates (mentioned earlier) are a reflection of this trend. The government’s continued efforts at enabling greater connectivity and fostering an information based economy has resulted in more rural areas adopting television and the technologies associated with it in the second decade of the 21st century. With rural digitisation achieving critical mass and urban markets nearing saturation, companies have been pursuing a more aggressive stance at promoting new value added premium services especially for the urban consumer since 2013. Bundling of telephone, internet and television services has become commonplace in metropolitan centres. Companies such as Airtel and TataSky have emerged as the frontrunners in the television revolution. But a new disruption is underway. That of Internet based streaming services such as Netflix and Amazon Prime entering the domestic market alongside homegrown services such as Hotstar and Voot. The competition with traditional television service providers hasn't heated up yet as is the case in the west owing largely to very competitive pricing structures in the traditional industry. But the global trends seem to suggest a trend reversal is imminent as content vies for more eyeballs in a price sensitive market as India. Further the introduction of IPTV though at a very small scale has acted as a catalyst in this process.

Content and Audience Evolution

Content and audience evolution in Indian television has perhaps been the fastest anywhere in the world given the short period of time that the television industry has been existing in the country. It has transcended sociocultural norms, economic boundaries and consumption patterns to establish how mass scale content can shape attitudes to encourage new behaviour among audiences. At the advent of television, DD aired twice a day, in the morning and evening. Apart from a five minute news bulletin, DD produced its own programming directed towards national development. Other than agricultural information, health and family planning were the other important topics dealt with in these programmes. Entertainment was also included in these telecasts in the form of dance, music, drama, folk and rural art forms. National telecasts were introduced in 1982, the same year that colour TV was introduced in the Indian market. Indian small screen programming started off in the early 1980s. At that time there was only one national channel Doordarshan, which was government owned. The Ramayan and Mahabharat (both Indian spiritual and mythological stories) were the first major television series produced. Mahabharat notched up the world record in viewership numbers for a single fictional program. By the late 1980s more and more people started to own television sets. Though there was a single channel, television programming had reached saturation. Hence the government opened up another channel which had part national programming and part regional. This channel was known as DD 2 later DD Metro. Both channels were broadcast terrestrially. Television continued the social trend that radio had started bringing the family indoors to experience programming together, but actually interacting less in the time they spent together. DD aired shows like Hum Log (1984), Buniyaad (1986-87) and comedy shows like Yeh Jo Hai Zindagi (1984) which solidified this trend. Most of these shows were a social commentary of some nature either through drama or comedy, much akin to the 70s when US television programming focussed on socially relevant issues.