Development of Television in India and Television as a Medium of Education

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Name: Ranjan P. Velari

Class: M.A. Sem. 4

Paper No: 15 (Mass Communication & Media Studies)

Enrollment No: 14101032

Email Id: ranjanvelari@gmail.com

Topic: Development of Television in India and Television as a Medium of Education

Guidance: Parth Bhatt

Submitted to: Smt.S.B. Gardi

                         Department of English

                         Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University

Introduction of Television:

  How can we say that television is more important in our life? Can we imagine world without television. Radio, TV, Computer or any other tools through us get information. Television also includes so many programmes to children to adult. It’s not measure any age group. Entertainment, knowledge, news of whole world, education, politics, economics, these all things are included in this. So, without television we can’t imagine our world.

  Television in India is a huge industry which has thousands of programmes in many languages. The small screen has produced numerous celebrities, of whom, a few attain national fame, and go on to become members of the two houses, Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha. More than half of all Indian households own a television. As of 2012, the country has a collection of over 823 channels of which 184 are pay channels. 

 History of Television in India:

Ø Terrestrial television in India started with the experimental telecast starting in Delhi on 15 September 1959 with a small transmitter and a makeshift studio. The regular daily transmission started in 1965 as a part of All India Radio. The television service was extended to Bombay and Amritsar in 1972. Up until 1975, only seven Indian cities had a television service. Television services were separated from radio in 1976. National telecasts were introduced in 1982.

Ø In the same year, color 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.

Ø The Ramayana and Mahabharata (both Indian spiritual & mythological stories) were the first major television series produced. 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.

Ø PAS-1 and PAS-4 are satellites whose transponders help in the telecasting of DD programmes in half the regions of the world. An international channel called DD International was started in 1995 and it telecasts programmes for 19 hours a day to foreign countries-via PAS-4 to Europe, Asia and Africa, and via PAS-1 to North America.

Ø Television Programs:

Hum Log (1984)

Buniyaad (1986-87)

Yeh Jo Hai Zindagi (1984) - comedy show

Mythological dramas: Ramayana (1987-88)

                                Mahabharata (1989-90)

Later on-

Bharat Ek Khoj

The Sword of Tipu Sultan

Chandrakanta

Hindi film based programs:

Chitrahar

Rangoli

Program related to children:

Vikram Betal

Malgudi Days

Television Channels and networks:

Ø The central government launched a series of economic and social reforms in 1991 under Prime Minister Narasimha Rao. Under the new policies the government allowed private and foreign broadcasters to engage in limited operations in India. This process has been pursued consistently by all subsequent federal administrations.

Ø  Foreign channels like CNN, STAR TV and private domestic channels such as Zee TV, ETV and Sun TV started satellite broadcasts. Starting with 41 sets in 1962 and one channel, by 1995, TV in India covered more than 70 million homes giving a viewing population of more than 400 million individuals through more than 100 channels.

Cable Television:

Ø As per the TAM Annual Universe Update – 2015, India now has over 167 million households with television sets, of which over 161 million have access to Cable TV or Satellite TV, including 84 million households which are DTH subscribers.

Ø Digital TV households have grown by 32% since 2013 due to migration from terrestrial and analog broadcasts. TV owning households have been growing at between 8-10%. Digital TV penetration is at 64% as of September 2014.

Ø The growth in digital broadcast has been due to the introduction of a multi-phase digitization policy by the Government of India. An ordinance was introduced by the Govt. of India regarding the mandatory digitization of the Cable Services.

Ø According to this amendment made in the section 9 of the Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Amendment Ordinance, 1995, the I&B ministry is in the process of making Digital Addressable System mandatory. As per the policy, viewers would be able to access digital services only through a set top box (STB)^.It is also estimated that India now has over 823 TV channels covering all the main languages spoken in the nation.

Ø Star TV Network introduced five major television channels into the Indian broadcasting space that had so far been monopolized by the Indian government-owned Doordarshan:

            MTV

            Star Plus

            Star Movies

            BBC

            Prime Sports

            Star Chinese Channel

Ø Soon after, India saw the launch of Zee TV, the first privately owned Indian channel to broadcast over cable followed by Asia Television Network (ATN). A few years later CNN, Discovery Channel and National Geographic Channel made their foray into India.

Ø Throughout the 1990s, along with a multitude of Hindi -language channels, several regional and English language channels flourished all over India. By 2001, international channels HBO and History Channel started providing service.

Ø In 1999–2003, other international channels such as Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, VH1, Disney and Toon Disney entered the market. Starting in 2003, there has been an explosion of news channels in various languages; the most notable among them are NDTV, CNN IBN and Aaj Tak.

Ø  The most recent channels/networks in the Indian broadcasting industry include UTV Movies, UTV Bindass, Zoom, Colours, 9X and 9XM. There are several more new channels in the pipeline, including Leader TV.

      Conditional Access System:

Ø CAS or conditional access system is a digital mode of transmitting TV channels through a set-top box (STB). The transmission signals are encrypted and viewers need to buy a set-top box to receive and decrypt the signal. The STB is required to watch only pay channels.

Ø It was decided by the government that CAS would be first introduced in the four metros. It has been in place in Chennai since September 2003, where until very recently it had managed to attract very few subscribers. It has been rolled out recently in the other three metros of Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata.

Ø As of April 2008 only 25 per cent of the people have subscribed the new technology. The rest watch only free-to-air channels. As mentioned above, the inhibiting factor from the viewer's perspective is the cost of the STB.

       Satellite Television:

Ø As of 2012, over 823 TV satellite television channels are broadcast in India. This includes channels from the state-owned Doordarshan, News Corporation owned Star TV, Sony owned Sony Entertainment Television, Zee TV, Sun Network and Asia net. 

Ø  Direct to Home service is provided by Airtel Digital TV, BIG TV owned by Reliance, DD Direct Plus, Dish TV, Sun Direct DTH, Tata Sky and Videocon D2H. Dish TV was the first one to come up in Indian Market, others came only years later.

Tata Sky Dish India:

Ø These services are provided by locally built satellites from ISRO such as INSAT 4CR, INSAT 4A, INSAT-2E, INSAT-3C and INSAT-3E as well as private satellites such as the Dutch-based SES, Global-owned NSS6, Thaicom-2 and Telstar 10.

Ø Cable TV is through cable networks and DTH is wireless, reaching direct to the consumer through a small dish and a set-top box. Although the government has ensured that free-to-air channels on cable are delivered to the consumer without a set-top box, DTH signals cannot be received without the set-top box.

Internet Protocol Television:

Ø IPTV a joint venture between MTNL and BSNL also in association with Aksh Optifiber a company that also provides FTTH and VoIP services available in some of the main cities in India such as Mumbai which has about 200 Television Channels on offer with Time Shift TV in a number of Basic and Premium Packages including Movies on Demand offered at various Basic, Premium and Pay Per View Rates and other services such as an Interactive Karaoke channel, The IPTV Operator uses the UT Star com Rolling Stream IPTV Solution as its end-to-end Delivery Platform.

Television as a Medium of Education:

Ø Educational television or Learning show is the use of television programs in the field of distance education. It may be in the form of individual television programs or dedicated specialty channels that are often associated with cable television in the United States as Public, educational, and government access (PEG) channel providers.

Ø There are also adult education programs for an older audience; many of these are instructional television or "telecourse" services that can be taken for college credit. Examples of these include Open University programs on BBC television in the UK.

Entertainment and Telenovelas: 

Ø Some television programs are designed with primarily educational purposes in mind, although they might rely heavily on entertainment to communicate their educational messages. In children's programming, edutainment becomes very fun and interesting for the child but can be very educational. Other television programs are designed to raise social awareness. One form of edutainment popular in Latin America is the educational telenovela. 

Conclusion:

So, in this way Television plays a vital role in our life. To educate to entertainment we use TV. It is wonderful medium to link between people and all around news. That’s why we can’t imagine world without Television.

 

Works Cited

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Educational_television.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_in_India.