NEW MEDIA

TECHNOLOGIES
 Contents

UNIT 1-INTRODUCTION TO MEDIA TECHNOLOGIES 3-41

Unit Objectives, Introduction, Meaning and classification of Mass Media, History & Origin of
Mass Media, History of Television, Origin & History of Radio, Origin & History of Newspaper,
Origin & Development of Magazines, History of Cinema in India, Organizational structure of
All India Radio & Doordarshan, Traditional Media, Summary, Exercises & Questions
Further Reading.
 UNIT 1-INTRODUCTION TO
MEDIA TECHNOLOGIES
Structure

1.0 Unit Objectives

1.1 Introduction
1.2 Meaning and classification of Mass Media
1.3 History & Origin of Mass Media
1.4 History of Television
1.5 Origin & History of Radio
1.6 Origin & History of Newspaper
1.7 Origin & Development of Magazines
1.8 History of Cinema in India
1.9 Organizational structure of All India Radio & Doordarshan
1.10 Traditional Media
1.11 Summary
1.12 Exercises & Questions
1.13 Further Reading

1.0 UNIT OBJECTIVES

• To understand the origin of mass media

• To discuss the various media technologies
• To know the print and broadcast media operations
• To understand the history and functioning of mass media like radio,
television, cinema, newspaper, magazine
• To know the organizational structure of All India Radio &
Doordarshan
• To learn the significance of Traditional Media in India
1.1 INTRODUCTION
Media is a term referring to those organized means of dissemination of fact,
opinion, entertainment, and other information, such as newspapers, magazines,
out-of- home advertising, cinema films, radio, television, the World Wide Web,
books, CDs, DVDs, videocassettes, video games and other forms of publishing.
Academic programs for the study of mass media are usually referred to as mass
communication programs.

1.2 MEANING & CLASSIFICATION OF MASS MEDIA

The term "mass media" refers to the means of public communication reaching a
large audience. When members of the general public refer to "the media" they are
usually referring to the mass media, or to the news media, which is a section of the
mass media. Sometimes mass media are referred to as the "corporate media".

Types of drama in numerous cultures were probably the first mass-media, going
back into the Ancient World. The first dated printed book known is the "Diamond
Sutra", printed in China in 868 AD, although it is clear that books were printed
earlier. Movable clay type was invented in 1041 in China. However, due to the
slow spread to the masses of literacy in China, and the relatively high cost of paper
there, the earliest printed mass-medium was probably European popular prints
from about 1400. Newspapers developed around from 1605, with the first example
in English in 1620; but they took until the nineteenth century to reach a mass-
audience directly.

During the 20th century, the growth of mass media was driven by technology that
allowed the massive duplication of material. Physical duplication technologies
such as printing, record pressing and film duplication allowed the duplication of
books, newspapers and movies at low prices to huge audiences. Radio and
television allowed the electronic duplication of information for the first time.

Mass media had the economics of linear replication: a single work could make
money proportional to the number of copies sold, and as volumes went up, units
costs went down, increasing profit margins further. Vast fortunes were to be made
in mass media. In a democratic society, independent media serve to educate the
public/electorate about issues regarding government and corporate entities. Some
consider the concentration of media ownership to be a grave threat to democracy.
Mass media are the tools or technologies that facilitate dissemination of
information and entertainment to a vast number of consumers. They are the
tools of large-scale manufacture and distribution of information and related
messages. These tools ‘mediate’ the messages; they are not the messages
themselves. Mass media can also be looked at as industries, as cultural or
entertainment industries.

While cinema, radio, television, cable, and the press can easily be recognized as
‘mass media’, the ‘new media can be identified as recent technologies such as
pagers, cellular phones, satellites, computers, electronic mail and the internet.

CHECK YOUR PROGRESS

Q1. Which was the first dated printed book?

Mass media can be used for various purposes:

Advocacy, both for business and social concerns. This can include
advertising, marketing, propaganda, public relations, and political
• Enrichment and education.
• Entertainment, traditionally through performances of acting, music, and
sports, along with light reading; since the late 20th century also through
video and computer games.
• Journalism.
• Public service announcements.

Classification of media:

Media refers to any kind of format used to convey information. Mass Media
refers to those types of media that are designed to reach large numbers of people.

The various types of mass media are:

• Television (cable, network, satellite, etc.)

• Radio
• Film & Video
• Print (newspapers, magazines, direct mail, etc.)
• Photography
• Electronic (E-mail, the Web, etc.)
All media produce a variety of genres, which refers to a particular type of style
or content.
Mass media genres can be divided into four basic types:

• Informative media - such as news shows, newspapers, informative

Web sites, etc.

• Educational media - such as books, educational video, or educational

software programs.
• Persuasive media - such as all types of advertising, television infomercials,
newspaper editorials, or Web sites that attempt to persuade.

• Entertainment media - such as entertainment magazines, movies, novels or

entertainment related Web sites.
Television offers all types of programs to the public, including comedies, dramas,
documentaries, news, soap operas, talk shows, advertising, and so on. Each of
these programs can illustrate more than one genre. For example, an educational
television show can also be entertaining.
All media work to identify specific groups as target audiences. These are groups
of people who are most likely to be receptive to a particular type of program,
movie, article, idea, genre, etc.
Mass media is also broadly classified as: Print and Broadcast Media

CHECK YOUR PROGRESS

Q1. Enlist the various types of mass media.

1.3 HISTORY & ORIGIN OF MASS MEDIA

Print Media History

By 2000 B.C., papyrus plants were made into watery pulp, pressed into long rolls,
dried, and then inscribed with hand- written symbols. In the first century A.D.,
parchment began to replace papyrus. The use of animal material made possible
folding and stitching of the writing surface, thus making rudimentary bound books
with heavy wooden covers possible for the first time. The Chinese used a
combination of vegetables materials including bark, rags, and husks to make the
first true papers for artistic purposes. The making of paper spread to Europe during
the Middle Ages, where monks to inscribe Biblical material used it. Handwritten
books became available to the very rich, but the arduous task of copying precluded
wide dissemination of written material.

Though the Chinese were engaged in printing before Johann Gutenberg’s first
efforts in 1450, Gutenberg is associated with ‘invention’ of printing because he
brought the various printing technologies together in a way that made quality
reproduction of books and pamphlets possible with greater speed and lower costs.
Gutenberg’s techniques prevailed for centuries. Even after the evolution of high-
speed rotary presses, and, still later, electronic photo-offset techniques that
rendered raised metal printing obsolete, Gutenberg’s basic concepts survived.
Today, some specialized printing is still performed on flatbed presses modeled
after Gutenberg’s. Ironically, Gutenberg died a personal failure and his son-in-law
Johann Fust actually carried out the printing operations that made Gutenberg
famous. These printing operations further ignited the imagination of others, who
set up similar presses and gave birth to the craft of printing in Europe. Guilds of
craftsmen controlled production in the mid-fifteenth century, and the acceptance of
printing, as a recognized craft was another step in the printing ‘revolution’.

Today we understand that information can fuel revolution. But when printing was
first introduced, no one could understand what changes it would work on society.
An Englishman, William Caxton, learned from the European craftsmen and set up
his country’s first printing press in 1476. Caxton is credited with printing the first
books in English, but he did so only at the pleasure of the rulers and the patronage
of the wealthy. Thus, as printing spread in England, it was carefully controlled.

The first printing press to cross the Atlantic went not to the British colonies, but to
the Mexico City, where the Spanish archbishop authorized the printing of religious
works beginning in 1539. A mere 20 years after the Pilgrims landed in the
colonies, bringing their bibles with them, the first printing press at Harvard College
in Cambridge, Massachusetts, was used to publish Bay Psalm Book. The audience
for books was limited by common illiteracy, the small size of the colonial
population and little leisure time among the first settlers. Early publishers,
conceded in Boston, Philadelphia and New York were not concerned with the
masses, which had neither the education nor the money for books. The laboring
class was not encouraged to read, nor were many of the settlers who pushed
westward. It was more than a century after the first press was in operation the
books finally became popular medium in the United States of America.

Franklin is credited with establishing the first subscription library scheme. The
best book collection is early America was assembled by Thomas Jefferson - a
collection that provided the foundation for the library of congress. By the 1850s,
books were being written by American authors for consumption by a mass
audience. By the 1950s, the boom in paperback sales had begun, and today the
majority of books sold in the United States are soft cover. Among the areas of
specialized book publishing today are the reference books, professional book,
textbooks, children books, technical, law or medical books, entertainment,
religious or hobby books.

CHECK YOUR PROGRESS

Q1. How did the ‘Printing Revolution’ start?

Broadcast Media History

Broadcasting is the distribution of audio and/or video signals which transmit

programs to an audience. The audience may be the general public or a relatively
large sub-audience, such as children or young adults.

The date of history’s first broadcast accepted by most historians of the subject is
the first radio newscast, which occurred in 1909 in San Jose, California- some 40
miles south of San Francisco. There, Dr. Charles David Herrold built a tiny
experimental radio transmitter and hooked it to an aerial which was strung over
downtown streets between numerous buildings. Over this spider- web of steel, the
doctor broadcast news and other programs to friends in the area to whom he had
provided free crystal sets.

Regardless of which station was first, the broadcast industry began its meteoric
growth during the 1920s: by 1922 there were some 600 stations on the air. Two
year later, that number had more than double to some 1400 most of which
functioned as promotional sidelines for commercial business. The stations offered
music, top names of the entertainment world and other material to amuse to small
number of faithful listeners. The people who owned the stations financed all of
this.

Despite Herrold’s fledgling attempts in San Jose to broadcast news, there was
practically no attempt made in the early days to do any type of radio reporting on a
regular basis. But on rare occasions there were net broadcast of special events. The
idea of network radio was not yet firmly established and these special networks
were created for one time only and ceased to exist after the event. It wasn’t until
November 15, 1926, that networks Broadcasting Company (NBC) began serving
25 members of its network. The Columbia Broadcasting System came into
existence with 16 stations eight months later in September 1927.

With the rising popularity of radio and its ability present on-the-spot reports of
news events, newspapers began to suffer from look of advertising revenue.
Potential advertisers soon realize that radio was attracting large number of faithful
listeners who were potential buyers of their products. To try and stem this shift of
audience and advertising, newspaper owners got together with three press
associations (United Press, Associated Press, and the International News Service)
to establish a restrictive news policy against radio. The competition between print
and broadcast got so cutthroat at one point that all three services refused to sell any
of their news to radio.

World War II provided the motive and the raw material for broadcast news to
sharpen its newsgathering abilities and techniques. Spot reports, live interviews,
commentary and other current practices all came into being under the heat of battle
and were tempered by the demands of the war coverage. Many of the today’s well-
known names in broadcast journalism gained their first experience what the
electronic media during the war years.

Television in its early days merely borrowed many of the proven radio
programming and production techniques. Radio on the other hand, had to painfully
experiment and develop on its own, as there was no precedent to lead the way. But
television even with its full color broadcasting instant replays communications
satellites and all its other expensive hardware cannot compete with radio in four
respects. First radio is more immediate. Because of the technical complexities in
television broadcast, radio is able to begin broadcasting from the scene of an event
immediately after the arrival of the reporter. Television, on the other hand, must
delay coverage until cameras, microphones, cables and other equipments are sent
by truck and it may be over 30 minutes before everything is ready to go.

Second, because of greater schedule flexibility, radio is able to present more news
reports during the broadcast. Television with its highly structured schedule often
holds news reports unit as its regularly scheduled news programmes. Radio on the
other hand can interrupt its format at a moment notice for whatever time it takes to
present the details on a fast breaking story. Third, radio can devote more of its
attention to local news. This advantage is more apparent in relatively small markets
where the nearest television station might be away while the radio station is
operating within the city limits.

Technological innovations in the early 1970s saw the introduction of light-weight

portable video recording equipment that increase the ability of television
journalists to cover an event quickly. Electronic news Gathering (ENG) involves
the use of battery-powered recorders that permit instant replay of news events
without the time-consuming process normally required to develop and edit 16mm
film. While ENG is still largely restricted to metropolitan areas because of
equipment costs, some smaller TV stations are finding the new videotape
technology an inexpensive way to provide more visual coverage in newscasts.
People turn to television for extensive coverage of news events, but an
overwhelming percentage of the potential audience turn on their radio to find out
the first reports of a news story.
Mass media in India is that part of the Indian media which aims to reach a wide
audience. Besides the news media, which includes print, radio and television, the
internet is playing an increasing role, along with the growth of the Indian blogging
community.
CHECK YOUR PROGRESS
Q1. When did the first broadcast take place?

1.4 HISTORY OF TELEVISION

The History of television technology can be divided along two lines: those
developments that depended upon both mechanical and electronic principles, and
those which are purely electronic. From the latter descended all modern
televisions, but these would not have been possible without discoveries and
insights from the mechanical systems.
The word television is a hybrid word, created from both Greek and Latin. Tele- is
Greek for "far", while -vision is from the Latin visio, meaning "vision" or "sight".
It is often abbreviated as TV or the telly.
The origins of what would become today's television system can be traced back to
the discovery of the photoconductivity of the element selenium by Willoughby
Smith in 1873, and the invention of a scanning disk by Paul Gottlieb Nipkow in
1884.
Experiments in television broadcasting were initiated during the 1920s in the
United States and Europe. These experiments used a mechanical scanning disc that
did not scan a picture rapidly enough. In 1923, however, came the invention of the
iconoscope, the electric television tube. The inventions of the kinescope or
picture tube, the electronic camera and TV home receivers arrived in rapid
succession during the next few years and by the 1930s the National Broadcasting
Corporation (NBC) had set up a TV station in New York, and BBC - a TV station
in London, offering regular telecast programmes. Germany and France too
established television stations around the same time.

The World War put a brake on further developments in television, though in Nazi
Germany Television was widely used as an instrument of political propaganda.
Nazi party conventions were televised, but the top event in the first chapter of
German television history was the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, which was staged as a
gigantic propaganda show. In 1948, there were as many as 41 TV stations in the
united states covering 23 cities through half a million receiving sets.

The age of satellite communication dawned in 1962 with the launching of Early
Bird, the first communication satellite. The two big international satellite
systems, Intelset and Intersputnik began operating in 1965 and 1971 respectively
and from then on the progress has been phenomenal. Today, almost every country
in the world has earth stations linked to satellites fro transmission and reception.
Communication satellites have literally transformed the modern world into what
Marshall McLuhan, the Canadian media sociologist, liked to call ‘a global
village’.

In the 1970s more sophisticated transmission techniques were invented employing

optical fiber cable and computer technology. Japan succeeded in designing a
computer-controlled network to carry two-way video information to and from
households. The audio -visual cassette and the video tape recorder, closed circuit
TV, and more recently cable television, pay television and DTH (Direct-to-Home)
television have changed the course of the development of TV in new and
unexpected ways. DTH and digital compression technology has enhanced the
number of channels, which can be accessed, as also the quality of picture and
sound transmissions.
CHECK YOUR PROGRESS
Q1. How did television originate?

Origin and History of Indian Television

Television first came to India [named as ‘Doordarshan’ (DD)] on Sept 15, 1959 as
the National Television Network of India. The first telecast started on Sept 15,
1959 in New Delhi. After a gap of about 13 years, s second television station was
established in Mumbai (Maharashtra) in 1972 and by 1975 there were five more
television stations at Srinagar (Kashmir), Amritsar (Punjab), Calcutta (West
Bengal), Madras (Tamil Nadu) and Lucknow (Uttar Pradesh). For many years the
transmission was mainly in black & white. Television industry got the necessary
boost in the eighties when Doordarshan introduced colour TV during the 1982
Asian Games.

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
Ramayana and Mahabharat was the first major television series produced. This
serial notched up the world record in viewer ship numbers for a single 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.
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. Foreign channels like CNN, Star TV and domestic channels such
as Zee TV and Sun TV started satellite broadcasts. Starting with 41 sets in 1962
and one channel (Audience Research unit, 1991) at present, TV in India covers
more than 70 million homes giving a viewing population more than 400 million
individuals through more than 100 channels. A large relatively untapped market,
easy accessibility of relevant technology and a variety of programmes are the main
reasons for rapid expansion of Television in India.

In 1992, the government liberated its markets, opening them up to cable television.
Five new channels belonging to the Hong Kong based STAR TV gave Indians a
fresh breath of life. MTV, STAR Plus, BBC, Prime Sports and STAR Chinese
Channel were the 5 channels. Zee TV was the first private owned Indian
channel to broadcast over cable. A few years later CNN, Discovery Channel,
National Geographic Channel made its foray into India. Star expanded its bouquet
introducing STAR World, STAR Sports, ESPN and STAR Gold. Regional
channels flourished along with a multitude of Hindi channels and a few English
channels. By 2001 HBO and History Channel were the other international channels
to enter India. By 2001-2003, other international channels such as Nickelodeon,
Cartoon Network, VH1, Disney and Toon Disney came into foray. In 2003 news
channels started to boom.

History of Television in India

The Indian television system is one of the most extensive systems in the world.
Terrestrial broadcasting, which has been the sole preserve of the government,
provides television coverage to over 90% of India's 900 million people, setting the
stage for India to develop into one of the world's largest and most competitive
television environments.

Broadcasting was harnessed for the task of political nation building. Broadcasting
was organized as the sole preserve of the chief architect of this process of political
integration --the State. The task of broadcasting was to help in overcoming the
immediate crisis of political instability that followed Independence and to foster
the long-term process of political modernization and nation building that was the
dominant ideology of the newly formed state.

It was in the context of this dominant thinking about the role of broadcasting in
India that television was introduced in 1959. The government had been reluctant to
invest in television until then because it was felt that a poor country like India
could not afford the medium. Television had to prove its role in the development
process before it could gain a foot-hold in the country.

Television broadcasts started from Delhi in September 1959 as part of All India
Radio's services. Programs were broadcast twice a week for an hour a day on such
topics as community health, citizens’ duties and rights, and traffic and road sense.
In 1961 the broadcasts were expanded to include a school educational television
project. In time, Indian films and programs consisting of compilation of musicals
from Indian films joined the program line-up as the first entertainment
programmes. A limited number of old U.S. and British shows were also telecast.

The first major expansion of television in India began in 1972, when a second
television station was opened in Bombay. This was followed by stations in
Srinagar and Amritsar (1973), and Calcutta, Madras and Lucknow in 1975. Relay
stations were also set up in a number of cities to extend the coverage of the
regional stations. In 1975, the government carried out the first test of the
possibilities of satellite based television through the SITE program. SITE
(Satellite Instructional Television Experiment) was designed to test whether
satellite based television services could play a role in socio-economic
development.

In these early years television, like radio, was considered a facilitator of the
development process and its introduction was justified by the role it was asked to
play in social and economic development. Television was institutionalized as an
arm of the government, since the government was the chief architect of political,
economic and social development in the country. Doordarshan was set up as an
attached office under the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting--a halfway
house between a public corporation and a government department.

In 1982 television began to attain national coverage and develop as the

government's pre-eminent media organization. Two events triggered the rapid
growth of television that year. INSAT-1A, the first of the country's domestic
communications satellites became operational and made possible the networking of
all of Doordarshan's regional stations.

1976 witnessed a significant event in the history of Indian television, the

advent of advertising on Doordarshan. Until that time television had been
funded through a combination of television licenses and allocations from the
annual budget (licenses were later abolished as advertising revenues began to
increase substantially). Advertising began in a very small way with under 1% of
Doordarshan's budget coming from advertising revenues in 1976- 77. The
commercialization of Doordarshan saw the development of soap operas, situation
comedies, dramas, musical programs, quiz shows and the like. By 1990
Doordarshan's revenues from advertising were about $300 million, accounting for
about 70% of its annual expenditure.

International satellite television was introduced in India by CNN through its

coverage of the Gulf War in 1991. Three months later Hong Kong based Star TV
(now owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.) started broadcasting five channels
into India using the ASIASAT-1 satellite. By early 1992, nearly half a million
Indian households were receiving Star TV telecasts. Taking advantage of the
growth of the satellite television audience, a number of Indian satellite based
television services were launched between 1991 and 1994, prominent among them
Zee TV, the first Hindi satellite channel. By the end of 1994 there were 12
satellite-based channels available in India, all of them using a handful of different
satellites. This number was expected to double by the end of 1996.

Despite the rapid growth of television channels from 1991 to 1996, television
programming continues to be dominated by the Indian film industry. Hindi films
are the staple of most national channels and regional channels rely heavily on a
mix of Hindi and regional language films to attract audiences. One of
Doordarshan's most popular programs, Chitrahaar, is a compilation of old film
songs and all the private channels, including Zee TV and music video channels like
MTV Asia and Channel V, show some variation of Chitrahaar. A number of game
shows are also based on movie themes. Other genres like soap operas, talk shows
and situation comedies are also gaining in popularity, but the production of these
programs has been unable to keep up with demand, hence the continuing reliance
on film based programming.

International satellite programming has opened up competition in news and public

affairs programming with BBC and CNN International challenging Doordarshan's
long-standing monopoly. Most of the other foreign broadcasters, for example,
ESPN and the Discovery Channel, are focusing on special interest programming.

A peculiar development in television programming in India has been the use of

hybrid English-Hindi program formats, popularly called "Hinglish" formats, which
offer programs in Hindi and English on the same channel and even have programs,
including news shows, that use both languages within a single telecast. This takes
advantage of the audience for television (especially the audience for satellite
television), which is largely composed of middle class Indians who have some
knowledge of English along with Hindi.

A huge industry by itself, the Indian silver screen has thousands of programmes in
all the states of India. The small screen has produced numerous celebrities of their
own kind some even attaining national fame.TV soaps are extremely popular with
housewives as well as working women. Some small time actors have made it big in
Bollywood.

Public television in India has the following social objectives:

1. To act as a catalyst for social change

2. To promote national integration
3. To stimulate a scientific temper in the minds of the people
4. To disseminate the message of family planning as a means of population
control and family welfare
 5. To provide essential information and knowledge in order to stimulate greater
agricultural production
6. To promote and help preserve environmental and ecological balance
7. To highlight the need for social welfare measures including welfare of
women, children and the less privileged
8. To promote interest in games and sports,
9. To create values of appraisal of art and our cultural heritage.

CHECK YOUR PROGRESS

Q1. When and how did Doordarshan started in India?
1.5 ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF RADIO IN INDIA
A combination of a number of discoveries by technicians and scientist from
different countries gave rise to the development of wireless telegraphy and later to
radio broadcasting. It took ten years for wireless telegraphy, to become a
broadcasting system. First, the World War prompted the industrialization of
wireless telegraphy, secondly in the United States the radio created a
communication environment in which amateurs could operate freely.

Broadcasting began in India with the formation of a private radio service in

Madras in 1924. In the same year, the British colonial government granted a
license to a private company, the Indian Broadcasting Company, to open Radio
stations in Bombay and Calcutta. The company went bankrupt in 1930 but the
colonial government took over the two transmitters and the Department of Labor
and Industries started operating them as the Indian State Broadcasting Corporation.
In 1936, the Corporation was renamed All India Radio (AIR) and placed under the
Department of Communications. When India became independent in 1947, AIR
was made a separate Department under the Ministry of Information and
Broadcasting.

The early history of radio broadcasting in independent India is important because it

set the parameters for the subsequent role of television in the country. At
Independence, the Congress government under Jawaharlal Nehru had three major
goals: to achieve political integration, economic development and social
modernization. Broadcasting was expected to play an important role in all three
areas.
The most important challenge the government faced at independence was that of
forging a nation out of the diverse political, religious, geographic and lingual
entities that composed independent India. In addition to the territories ruled
directly by the British, over 500 hundred "independent" princely states had joined
the new nation, some quite reluctantly. The country immediately found itself at
war with Pakistan over one of those states-- Kashmir. The trauma of the partition
of the country into India and Pakistan and the violence between Hindus and
Muslims had further weekend the political stability of the country.

Broadcasting was harnessed for the task of political nation building. National
integration and the development of a "national consciousness" were among the
early objectives of All India Radio. Broadcasting was organized as the sole
preserve of the chief architect of this process of political integration for the State.
The task of broadcasting was to help in overcoming the immediate crisis of
political instability that followed Independence and to foster the long-term process
of political modernization and nation building that was the dominant ideology of
the newly formed state.

Radio broadcasting is a Government of India monopoly under the Directorate

General of All India Radio--established in 1936 and since 1957 also known as
Akashvani--a government-owned, semi commercial operation of the Ministry of
Information and Broadcasting. From only six stations at the time of independence,
All India Radio's network had expanded by the mid-1990s to 146 AM stations plus
a National Channel, the Integrated North-East Service (aimed at tribal groups in
northeast India), and the External Service. There are five regional headquarters
for All India Radio: the North Zone in New Delhi; the North-East Zone in
Guwahati, Assam; the East Zone in Calcutta; the West Zone in Bombay; and the
South Zone in Madras.

The government -owned network provides both national and local programs in
Hindi, English, and sixteen regional languages. Vividh Bharati Service,
headquartered in Bombay, provides commercial Radio services in India, which
were inaugurated in 1967. Vividh Bharati, which accepts advertisements,
broadcasts from thirty-one AM and FM stations in the mid-1990s.

India has an extensive network of medium wave and shortwave stations. In 1994
there were eighty-five FM stations and seventy-three shortwave stations that
covered the entire country. The broadcasting equipment is mostly Indian made and
reaches special audiences, such as farmers needing agro climatic, plant protection,
and other agriculture-related information. The number of radio receivers increased
almost fivefold between 1970 and 1994, from around 14 million to nearly 65
million. Most radios are also produced within India.

The foreign broadcast service is a function of the External Services Division of All
India Radio. In 1994 seventy hours of news, features, and entertainment programs
were broadcast daily in twenty-five languages using thirty-two shortwave
transmitters. The principal target audiences are listeners in neighboring countries
and the large overseas Indian community.

FM Broadcasts were introduced in Madras in 1977 and later at Jalandhar in

1992, but it was only in 1993 when time slots came to be leased to private
companies that FM became synonymous with pop music and youth culture.
FM broadcasts ensure reception free from atmospheric noise and electric
interference. The AIR stations of Delhi, Bombay, Panaji, Bangalore, Madras,
Calcutta, now sell FM slots to private producers such as Times FM, Radio Midday
and Radiostar. FM broadcasts in most of the cities are oriented to urban English-
speaking youth, with western pop music dominating. Besides sponsored hit
parades and countdowns, the FM programmes include chat shows, news bulletin,
contests, quizzes and plays. Advertising support for the leased slots is naturally on
the rise.
CHECK YOUR PROGRESS
Q1. When is the first Radio Broadcast dated in India?

Early years of Radio Broadcasting in India

Lionel Fielden, India’s first Controller of broadcasting, tells the story of the early
years of Indian Broadcasting in his autobiography:

“ A group of Indian businessmen, fired by the financial success of European

broadcasting, had floated a company in 1927, with a too merge capital, built two
weak little stations at Calcutta and Bombay. In the following three years they had
gathered some 7,000 listeners and lost a great deal of money. They decided to go into
liquidation. The government of India, which then and later with considerable wisdom-
thought broadcasting a curse was thereupon bullied by the vested interests of radio
dealers to buy up the transmitters. Having done so, it proceeded, quite naturally, to
economize; file-writers in Delhi could hardly be expected to sanction
public expenditure on music, drama and similar irrelevancies: it seemed obvious
that all such frivolous waste should be avoided. The programmes accordingly
deteriorated even from their former low standard and Indian broadcasting would
have spiraled down to complete eclipse had not the BBC, at the critical moment,
started an Empire programme on the short wave. Europeans in India rushed to
buy sets; and since the government had, by way of strangling broadcasting
altogether, put an import duty of fifty percent on sets, even the 8000 extra stets
purchased brought quite a deal of money under the broadcasting head. The
dealers cried that broadcasting’s profits must be used for broadcasting. The
government replied with the offer of a new station at Delhi and a man-me- from
the BBC. But, however, much English residents of India listened to the BBC-and to
the radio dealers it did not matter, then, who listened to what as long as sets were
sold-Indian broadcasting remained what it has always been”

1.6 ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF NEWSPAPER

Origin of Newspaper in India

Newspaper industry in any country is related to the beginning of printing press and it
was Johann Guttenberg who invented printing press in 1455. Thus in India too, the
beginning of newspaper is related to the beginning of the press. The Portuguese
introduced the printing press in Goa, in 1557. British East India Company brought
about the printing press in India and first press was strolled at Bombay in 1674.
Ironically, the first printing press was strolled in 1674, yet there was no
newspaper being published for another 100 years.

William Bolts who was an officer in the company announced a hand written
newspaper in 1776. He wrote the newspaper and asked the people to come to his
residence to read it. The aim of this newspaper was to inform British Company in
India to the news from home and also to bring about the grievances against colonial
administration.

The first newspaper to be published in India was ‘Bengal Gazette’ or Calcutta

general, which was a weekly newspaper. Later, it was named as ‘Hickey’s Gazette.
Hickey declared that he started the newspaper to expose corruption and favoritism of
the Company and thus he covered all the inner fights of the company and did not
spare even the governor general.
Raja Ram Mohan Roy published out free newspapers magazines in the year 1821,
namely Sambad Kaumudi (Bengali), Mirat-ul-Akbar (Persian), brahamanical
magazine (English) . It was the first time that through these newspapers Raja Ram
Mohan Roy tried to cover all the readers in India.

The first newspapers in Bombay were owned and printed by Parsis, who already
owned the technological and financial basis for such ventures. Rustomji
Keshaspathi printed the first English newspaper in Bombay in 1777. The first
vernacular newspaper in Bombay was the Gujarati daily Mumbai Samachar,
published in 1822 by Fardoonjee Marzban. Although not the first newspaper in an
Indian language, Mumbai Samachar is still being published and is India’s oldest
newspaper.

CHECK YOUR PROGRESS

Q1. Which was the first newspaper published in India?

Brief History of Newspaper in India

200-year history of the Indian press, from the time of Hicky to the present day, is
the history of a struggle for freedom, which has not yet ended. There has been
alternating periods of freedom and of restrictions on freedom amounting to
repression. The first newspaper meant for publication was ‘announced’ in 1776 by
William Bolts and he asked those interested to come to his residence to read the
news. This ‘newspaper’ had the twin function of informing the British community
to news from ‘home’, and of ventilating grievances against the colonial
administration.

But it was only until James Augustus Hicky dared to start his Bengal Gazette (also
called Hicky’s Gazette) in 1780 that the age of journalism dawned in India.
England had already had a taste of the Spectator papers of Addison and Steele, and
of lesser- known periodicals as well, and learnt about the power of the periodical
essayists, to laugh to scorn the manners of society.

Political and social corruption was rife among the British sent to rule our country
when Hicky, a printer by profession, launched his Gazette ‘in order to purchase
freedom for my mind and soul’. He described the Bengal Gazette (later Hicky’s
Gazette) as a ‘weekly political and commercial paper open to all parties but
influenced none’. His venom was aimed at individuals like Mr. Warren Hastings
and their private affairs. He published announcements of marriages and
engagements, and of ‘likely’ engagements. Barely a year later, Sir Warren
Hastings denied all postal facilities to Hicky who hit back with these words; “Mr.
Hicky considers the liberty of the press to be essential to the very existence of an
Englishman and a free government. The subject should have full liberty to declare
his principles and opinions, and every act which tends to persuade that liberty is
tyrannical and injurious to the community’.

In June the following year, Hicky was arrested and thrust into jail, from where he
continued writing for the Gazette. He was stopped from ‘bringing out his weekly
only when the types used for printing were seized.

Five newspapers made their appearance in Bengal in six years time-all started
by Englishmen. Some of these newspapers received government patronage. The
Madras Courier and the Bombay Herald were then launched in the two cities. They
were submissive to the government, and therefore flourished. The total circulation of
all these weeklies was not more than 2,000; yet, the government issued Press
Regulations making the publication of the name of the printer, editor and proprietor
obligatory. The regulations also ordered these to declare themselves to the secretary
of the government; and the submit all material for prior examination to the same
authority. Pre-censorship was to dog the Indian journalist for many years to come.

The pioneers of Indian language journalism were the Serampore Missionaries with
Samachar Darpan and other Bengali periodicals, and Raja Ram Mohan Roy with his
Persian newspaper Mirat-ul- Akbar. The object of Ram Mohan Roy, the social
reformer, in starting the paper was’ to lay before the public such articles of
intelligence as may increase their experience, and tend to their social improvement
and to ‘indicate to the rulers a knowledge of the real situation of their subjects, and
make the subjects acquainted with the established laws and customs of their rules’.
Roy ceased publishing his paper later in protest against the government’s press
Regulations.

The Bombay Samachar, a Gujarati newspaper, appeared in 1822. It was almost a

decade before daily vernacular papers like Mombai Vartaman (1830), the Jan-e-
Jamshed(1831), and the Bombay Darpan (1850), began publication. In the south, a
Tamil and a Telugu newspaper was established with the aid of a government grant,
and in the north West Provinces, a Hindi and an Urdu periodical started off under the
government’s patronage. The Bengali press with as many as nine newspapers in
1839 had a circulation of around 200 copies each, even as the British press with 26
newspapers grew in strength and power, under the liberal rule of Lord Metcalfe, and
later of Lord Auckland.
1.7 ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF MAGAZINES
Origin and Development of Magazines in India

There was a boom of publication of magazines in India in the year 1980s. This
development could not be traced in English but in the major Indian languages as
well. In fact, it is seen that nearly four out of every five Indian periodicals are in the
Indian languages, and they have a circulation which is nearly three fourth of the total
circulation. Hindi has the largest circulation (57.9 lakhs), with over 3,000 periodicals
followed by English, which has 2,670 periodicals with a circulation of over six
million. Magazines in Tamil, Malayalam, Gujarati, Bengali, Marathi, Urdu and
Telugu too enjoy a fairly good circulation.

The magazine boom was perhaps set off by the launch of India Today in the mid-
seventies, and the new- look Illustrated Weekly of India under the editorship of
Khushwant Singh (India Today was initially targeted at Indians settled abroad, but
having failed miserably to make an impression, changed gears to target it product at
the upper and middle class at home). Its inspiration right from its red- border cover
page to its mode of gathering and editing and ‘packaging ‘ news has been TIME-
International. So it came as no surprise when in 1992, India Today became the
official agent of TIME magazine in India, collecting subscriptions and
advertisements for it. It was only the national policy opposed to the entry of the
foreign press that has kept TIME from publishing its Asian edition from New Delhi.

Other magazines to be launched in quick succession in the early eighties included

Gentleman, Gentleman Fashion Quarterly, Onlooker, New Delhi, The Week, G and
others. Several new film magazines and computer magazines also took off around
the same time. The new magazines introduced colour, gloss and a snazzy style of
reporting which ‘personalized’ and ‘dramatized’ issues and events. Photographs,
illustrations, charts and graphs enlivened each page, and the focus was on ‘soft’
features. High quality printing on imported glazed paper lent the magazines an
expensive look. This pleased the advertising industry immensely.

The rise and development of magazines continued in 1990s despite the closing of
some magazines like The Illustrated Weekly of India and Bombay. The growth
during this period was spectacular in case of special interest magazines, like those
dealing with business and finance, computers and electronics. Several special
interest periodicals were launched in 1993: Parenting, Young Mother, Auto India,
and Car & Bike.

News and current affair magazines have the largest readership-around 27% of
the total magazine circulation. Next in popularity are literary and cultural
magazines, commanding a circulation of around 25%. Surprisingly, religious and
philosophical magazines have a circulation of about 8%. Film magazines are
growing in numbers and circulation. Ironically, political and film gossip makes up
the staple fare of most general interest and news magazines, which in terms of
circulation are in great demand at target groups such as youth, children, women, film
buffs, professionals, executives, business groups, computer users, sports lovers and
others.

1.8 HISTORY OF CINEMA IN INDIA

Beginning of Cinema in India

Before the actual beginning of cinema in India, there was the growth of musical
dramas, the theatre, jatra in Bengal. Music, dance, song were an integral part of
these performing traditions, this was the heritage of Sanskrit drama and later
popular folk performing traditions such as the ram lila, the ras lila, the nautanki.
So, when the first ‘cinematographic exhibitions’ of the Lumiere Brothers were
held in Bombay on July 7, 1896, Indian dramatists, photographers, magicians,
musicians and singers saw in them great potential for the re-telling of Indian myths
and folklore. The Times of India advertised these early exhibitions as ‘the marvel
of the country, the wonder of the world’. The ‘exhibition’ included ‘living
photographic pictures’ of the arrival of a train, of workers leaving a factory, of a
sea-bath, and of ladies and soldiers on wheels. The exhibition continued to draw
crowds to four shows daily for over two months. It was indeed remarkable that the
cinema had its beginnings in India almost at the same time as in other major film-
producing countries.

Brief History of Indian Cinema

The first exposure to motion pictures that India received was when the
Lumiere Brothers' Cinematographer unveiled six soundless short films, on
July 7, 1896, at the Watson Hotel in Mumbai. The first exposing of celluloid in
a camera by an Indian and its consequent screening took place in 1899, when Save
Dada shot two short films and exhibited them under Edison's projecting
kinetoscope. As the early 1900s rolled in, with the country poised for major social
and political reforms, a new entertainment form dawned in India -- the cinema.
Dadasaheb Phalke- a versatile talent, who had a varied career as a painter,
photographer, playwright and magician before he took to film -- was responsible
for the production of India's first fully indigenous silent feature film, Raja
Harishchandra, adapted from the Mahabharata. The film had titles in Hindi and
English, and was released on May 3, 1913 at the Coronation Cinema in Mumbai.
This lay the foundation of what, in time, would grow to become the largest film
producing industry in the world.

After stepping into 1920, Indian cinema gradually assumed the shape of a regular
industry, producing silent films and also coming within the purview of the law.
The new decade saw the arrival of many new companies and filmmakers. Directors
such as Dhiren Ganguly, Baburao Painter, Suchet Singh, Chandulal Shah,
Ardershir Irani and V Shantaram were among the early pioneers. The increased
profitability of the cinema enabled filmmakers to reinvest their gains in new
productions and additional infrastructure such as studios, laboratories and theatres.
By 1925, Mumbai had already become India's cinema capital.

The most remarkable thing about the birth of the sound film in India is it came
with a bang and quickly displaced silent movies. The first Indian talkie, Alam Ara
(1931) was a 124-minute feature produced by the Imperial Film Company in
Mumbai and directed by Ardershir Irani. Advertised as an all talking, all singing,
all dancing film, it brought revolutionary changes in the whole set up of the
industry.
The 1930s are recognized as a decade of social protest in the history of Indian
cinema. Three big banner production companies -- Prabhat, Bombay Talkies and
New Theatres -- took the lead in making gripping but entertaining films for all
classes. A number of films that made a strong plea against social injustice were
produced in this period, specifically some by V Shantaram.

V Shantaram's illustrious career spanned seven decades from the 1920s to 1986.
He was arguably the most innovative and ambitious filmmaker in the industry's
history, creating 105 films as a director, producer and actor. His first talkie and
bilingual film in 1932, Ayodhye Cha Raja, was about a legendary Indian king
loved by all his subjects and remembered for his fairness. V Shantaram cast an
upper caste Brahmin woman in the lead to break the rules. In those days, women
actors were looked down upon. Since then, the industry has attracted women from
the upper castes to lend it respectability.
His Amar Jyoti (1936) became the first women's lib film in India and first Indian
film to be screened at an International Film Festival (Venice). 1937, 1939 and 1941
saw the release of his acclaimed trilogy -- Duniya Na Mane, Aadmi and Pados --
highlighting the hypocrisy of Indian society. In 1943, under his own banner
Rajkamal Studios, he made Shakuntala -- a major box office hit starring his wife,
Jayshree that ran for 104 weeks in one theatre. It became the first Indian film to be
commercially released in America in 1947.

In 1946, he made Dr Kotnis Ki Amar Kahani, in which he played the lead. It is the
story of a young Indian doctor sent to China as part of a team by Jawaharlal Nehru
on a humanitarian mission to aid the Chinese in their war against Japan. The doctor
marries a Chinese nurse and dies serving the wounded on a battlefield. The British
applauded the film's anti-Japanese plot; the Communists were happy with its
setting around Mao Zedong's army, while its patriotic theme appealed to the Indian
National Congress. Thus, V Shantaram's film became perhaps the only instance the
Congress, Communists and British agreed on anything!
Indian cinema had its golden age from the 1950s to mid-1960s, at a time when
budgets were generally lower and directors were encouraged to be inventive rather
than play safe. Influential directors like Mehboob Khan, K Asif, Raj Kapoor, Guru
Dutt and Bimal Roy all brought something new to cinema.
Mehboob Khan's Mother India (1957), for instance, focused on political themes
and social critique within a pop culture setting.
The 1960s began with a bang with the release of K Asif's Mughal-E-Azam, which
set a box-office record. An epic about Prince Salim, son of the Emperor Akbar, and
his forbidden romance with court dancer Anarkali, it was one of the most
expensive films to produce at the time and took 10 years to make.
Guru Dutt was another wonderful actor and director whose films dealt with
exploitation. Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam (1962), about a lowly servant and his plutonic
relationship with the lady of the house, dealt with social hypocrisies of the time.
Raj Kapoor’s films displayed two main concerns -- social critique and love that
transcended social barriers. 1964's Sangam, a romantic musical, was one of his
most popular films. Dev Anand's Guide (1965) was also one of the significant
films of the decade, while Bimal Roy brought with him a new era of post World
War II romantic melodrama.
These directors mastered the use of film, music and choreography. They
transformed the film song into an art form and confirmed that music was Indian
cinema's greatest strength. During every decade since the 1950s, a large number of
films that would otherwise have been forgotten were saved by marvelous music.
The first International Film Festival of India, held early 1952 in Mumbai, had
a great impact on cinema because it allowed India's filmmakers to be exposed to
films from around the world. After the golden age, the form of popular films
started to evolve. The transition to colour and the consequent preference for
escapist entertainment and greater reliance on stars brought about a complete
change.

Satyajit Ray, Ritwik Ghatak and Mrinal Sen spearheaded the New Indian Cinema -
- one of social significance and artistic sincerity, presenting a modern, humanist
perspective more durable than the fantasy world of popular cinema.

By the 1970s, Hindi film began to combine all genres into a single movie, with
song and dance firmly at the heart of the narrative. This mixed approach is still the
way the stories unfold today. In a Bollywood movie, such mixing and matching
can translate into the hero fighting a sinister politician in one scene and serenading
his heroine, with 40 dancers moving in unison behind him, in the next.

The English language press in India in the late 1970s popularized the term
Bollywood -- which has now become the dominant global term to refer to the
prolific and box office- oriented industry in Mumbai. 'Bollywood', derived by
combining Bombay with Hollywood, has also been included in the Oxford English
dictionary.

The 1970s further-widened the gap between multi-star big budget and offbeat
films. The hits of the decade include Kamal Amrohi's Pakeezah (1971), depicting
the desire of a courtesan to find a place in respectable society.
Ramesh Sippy's Sholay (1975) was the first Indian movie produced on 70-
millimetre film with stereophonic sound. It ran for five years to full houses,
ushering in a new era of action.
Other important films by noted directors -- Shyam Benegal, Govind Nihalani and
Muzaffar Ali -- continued to hold audiences in the 1980s. The late 1980s and early
1990s saw the revival of musical love stories. The family drama Hum Aapke Hain
Kaun (1994), for instance, went on to become the highest grossing Indian film of
all time -- despite the fact that it has 14 songs, runs for 195 minutes, has no villain
and no violence!
India produces about 800 to 1,000 films yearly, in dozens of languages. About
300 of these can be considered 'Bollywood' films as they are filmed in Hindi, the
dominant Indian language. They reach nearly 3.6 billion people worldwide,
claiming many followers in the Middle East, South and East Asia, Fiji Islands,
Russia, the UK, North America and the Caribbean.

Indian and Western film progressed along a parallel path for some time, as
Bollywood and Hollywood began at essentially the same time. Yet, a gulf emerged
due to India's reluctance to change, illiteracy and the application of censorship. The
censor board has finally allowed kissing on screen although, inexplicably, scantily
clad women and erotically charged scenes involving women in wet clothes have
always been allowed. The subject matter of most films is particularly culturally
oriented and Western audiences unfamiliar with the cultural nuances may not
understand the meaning of certain things happening within the film. These factors
have hindered the films from gaining worldwide acceptance.
One of the most defining features of popular cinema in India is the presence of
music in the form of songs. Actors lip-sync songs sung by playback singers, who
became permanent fixtures in the industry since 1935. Film music accounts for
nearly 80 percent of music sales in India, thanks to the general belief in the
industry that love and romance are best expressed musically.

The film industry was granted official industry status by the government in 1998,
allowing corporate financing. Until then, film financing had come mostly from the
private sector or, allegedly, the Indian underworld. Industry status coupled with
liberalization has made overseas production and distribution easier. All this has
lead to Indian film producers and directors targeting the Indian Diaspora. They
have gone to the extent of filming subjects where Bollywood actors themselves
play the roles of Diaspora Indians, the dominant language being 'Hinglish.'
The film industry in India, like the press, and unlike the television and radio, is
entirely free and independent. It is subject only to the terms and conditions of the
cinematograph Act of 1952, which is still in operation, although it has been
amended many times. The Act imposes certain norms that are to be observed,
relating particularly to censorship, taxation, import and export of films.
CHECK YOUR PROGRESS
Q1. How and where did India get its first exposure to cinema?

1.9 ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE OF ALL INDIA RADIO &

DOORDARSHAN

Prasar Bharati (Broadcasting Corporation of India) is the public service

broadcaster in the country, with Akashwani (All India Radio) and Doordarshan as
its two constituents. It came into existence on 23rd November 1997, with a mandate
to organize and conduct public broadcasting services to inform, educate and
entertain the public and to ensure a balanced development of broadcasting on radio
and television.
Prasar Bharati Board functions at the apex level ensuring formulation and
implementation of policies of the organization and fulfillment of the mandate in
terms of the Prasar Bharati Act, 1990. The Executive Member functions as the
Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Corporation, subject to the control and
supervision of the Board. The CEO, the Member (Finance) and the Member
(Personnel) perform their functions from the Prasar Bharati headquarters at
Parliament Street, New Delhi.
All important policy matters relating to finance, administration and personnel are
submitted to the CEO and the Board through the Member (Finance) and the
Member (Personnel) as required, for the purpose of advice, implementation of
proposals and decisions thereon. Officers from different streams working in the
Prasar Bharati Secretariat assist the CEO, the Member (Finance) and the Member
(Personnel) in integrating actions, operations, plans and policy implementation as
well as look after the budget, accounts and general financial matters of the
Corporation.

Prasar Bharati also has a unified vigilance set up at the headquarters, headed by a
Chief Vigilance Officer. Prasar Bharati Marketing offices located at Mumbai, New
Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore and Hyderabad look after marketing activities
of both All India Radio and Doordarshan.
To facilitate decision making, the Policy & Executive Committee (earlier known as
Management Committee) chaired by the CEO, has been constituted for both
Doordarshan and AIR.
The Directors General heads the Directorate General of All India Radio and the
Directorate General of Doordarshan. They function in close association with the
Member (Finance), the Member (Personnel) and the CEO, in carrying out the day-
to-day affairs of AIR and Doordarshan. Both in AIR and Doordarshan, there are
broadly four different wings responsible for distinct activities viz. Programme,
News, Engineering and Administration & Finance.

AIR (All India Radio)

All India Radio (AIR) is a national service planned, developed and operated by the
Ministry of Information & Broadcasting under the Government of India. Sound
broadcasting started in India in 1927 with the proliferation of private radio clubs.
The operations of All India Radio began formally in 1936, as a government
organization, with clear objectives to inform, educate and entertain the masses.

When India attained Independence in 1947, AIR had a network of six stations and
a complement of 18 transmitters. The coverage was 2.5% of the area and just 11%
of the population. Rapid expansion of the network took place post Independence.

AIR today has a network of 223 broadcasting centres with 143 medium frequency
(MW), 54 high frequency (SW) and 161 FM transmitters. The coverage is 91.42%
of the area, serving 99.13% of the people in the largest democracy of the world.
AIR covers 24 Languages and 146 dialects in home services. In External services,
it covers 27 languages; 17 national and 10 foreign languages.

All India Radio comes under the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting
Government of India. A secretary and four joint secretaries who are supposed to do
the following jobs assist the minister of information and broadcasting:
• Policy
• Broadcasting
• Financial Advisor and
• Film

In order to help the joint secretaries in the execution of above jobs, there are
deputy secretary and under secretaries also.

Radio stations come in all sizes and generally are classifies as being either small,
medium or large market outlets. The size of the community that a station serves
usually reflects the size of its staff. For example, the station in a town of five
thousand residents may have six to eight fulltime employees in the station.
Medium markets are set up in more densely populated areas and in this type of
station; there are twelve to twenty employees. Mostly, overlapping of duties occur
in the larger stations, positions are usually limited to specific areas of
responsibility. Large stations may employ as many as sixty to hundred people and
as few as twenty depending on the nature of their format.

In All India Radio, Director General is the head of the organization, and therefore
it is a sensitive post requiring a wide cultural background, initiative, tact,
administrative abilities, sound judgment of matters and people, a deep commitment
to broadcasting and qualities of leadership of a high order.

Occasionally, Indian Administration Service Officers are assigned an additional

task of Director General of All India Radio and since independence; there have
been around 15 IAS officers who have performed the task of Director General of
AIR.

There are Additional Director General and Deputy Director Generals also who help
the Director General is assisted by Director of Programmes. A Director whose rank
is equivalent to Deputy Director General heads news Division. The Director is
assisted by Chief News Editor, News Editor, Joint Director, etc. others employed
in the news department of the radio station are the News Readers, Announcers,
Translators and others.

The Engineering Division of AIR is looked after by Engineer- in-Chief and is

assisted by Chief Engineer and Regional Engineers. The Regional Stations of AIR
is under the control of Station Director who is assisted by Assistant Station
Directors and Programme Executives.

B.G. Verghese Committee has also proposed an organizational structure for AIR,
which has the following posts of General Managers:

1. GM Legal Services
2. GM Planning
3. GM Information
The committee also proposed a Central News Room consisting of a General
Manager, Editor, Foreign Editor, Editor Monitoring. This committee has also
proposed the creation of the posts of Station Manager, Accounts and Personnel
Officer, Programme Officer, Extension Officer, etc.
CHECK YOUR PROGRESS
Q1. When did AIR broadcasting start in India?

Doordarshan

Doordarshan is a Public broadcast Terrestrial television channel run by Prasar

Bharati, a board nominated by the Government of India. It is one of the largest
broadcasting organisations in the world in terms of the infrastructure of studios and
transmitters. Recently it has also started Digital Terrestrial Transmitters.
Doordarshan had a modest beginning with the experimental telecast starting in
Delhi in 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 Mumbai (then Bombay) and Amritsar in 1972.
Till 1975, seven Indian cities had television service and Doordarshan remained the
only television channel in India. Television services were separated from radio in
1976. Each office of All India Radio and Doordarshan were placed under the
management of two separate Director Generals in New Delhi. Finally Doordarshan
as a National Broadcaster came into existence.
National programme was introduced in 1982. In the same year, colour TVs were
introduced in the Indian markets with the live telecast of the Independence Day
parade on 15 August 1982, followed by the Asian Games being held in Delhi. The
80s was the era of Doordarshan with soaps like Hum Log (1984), Buniyaad (1986-
87) and mythological dramas like Ramayan (1987-88) and Mahabharat (1988-89)
glued millions to DoorDarshan. Other popular programs included Hindi film songs
based programs like Chitrahaar and Rangoli and crime thrillers like Karamchand.

Now more than 90 percent of the Indian population can receive DoorDarshan
(DD1) programmes through a network of nearly 1400 terrestrial transmitters.
About 46 DoorDarshan Studios are producing TV programs today. Presently,
DoorDarshan operates 19 channels – two All India channels, 11 Regional
Languages Satellite Channels (RLSC), four State Networks (SN), an International
channel, a Sports Channel and two channels (DD-RS & DD-LS) for live broadcast
of parliamentary proceedings.
Doordarshan Channels

DD National, DD News,DD Sports, DD Bharati, DD- Gyandarshan, DD Rajya

Sabha, DD Lok Sabha, DD India, DD Bengali, DD Chandana (Kannada), DD
Gujarati, DD Kashir, DD Malayalam, DD North East, DD Oriya, DD Podhigai
(Tamil), DD Punjabi, DD Sahyadri (Marathi), DD Saptagiri (Telugu)

CHECK YOUR PROGRESS

Q1. How many regional channels does the Doordarshan have? List some of them.

Organizational Structure of Doordarshan

The Director General, Doordarshan is responsible for the overall administration of

the Doordarshan network which consists of 60 Doordarshan Kendras / Production
Centres, 126 Doordarshan Maintenance Centres, 194 High Power Transmitters,
830 Low Power Transmitters and 379 very Low Power Transmitters as on
31.12.2004. Doordarshan is presently operating 26 channels.
Doordarshan is divided into four wings: Programme, News, Engineering,
Administration & Finance, Programme Wing deals with all aspects relating to
programme conception, production and procurement at the national, regional, and
local level. News Wing puts out news bulletins and other current affairs
programmes at the national and regional level. Engineering Wing deals with all the
hardware requirements of the entire network, including the space segment and the
studios, transmitters etc. Administration & Finance Wing deals with the
administrative and financial aspects including general administration, personnel
management, budget and plan coordination.

In most of the ways, the organizational structures of Doordarshan and All India
Radio are more or less the same. But Doordarshan these days are growing bigger in
terms of number of sections, subsections and staff of various kinds.
The overall head of all the departments in Doordarshan is the Director
General. The rank of the Director General of Doordarshan is equivalent to that of
the Director General of All India Radio, while earlier it was not the case. In
Doordarshan, the Director General heads the Department of Programme and
Administration. His main job is to supervise, guide, govern and control the entire
functioning of the department. He is assisted by:

• Additional Director General and Deputy Director General (Development)

• Deputy Director General (News and Current Affairs)
• Deputy Director General (Communication & film)
• Deputy Director General (Production & Transmission)
• Director (Finance & Personnel Control)
The Additional Director General looks after News and Current Affairs, Programme
Policy, Programme Coordination, Planning, Public Relations, etc. The rank of
Additional Director General is equivalent to that of Joint Secretary, Govt. of India.
He is assisted by Controller of Programme (Policy), Controller of Programme
(Coordination), Controller of Programme (Development), Public Relations Officer,
etc.

The Deputy Director General (Development) looks after the proper and sequence-
wise development of the programme and is supported by Director, Audience
Research, Controller of Programme (Development) and Deputy Controller of
Programme.

The Deputy Director General (News & Current Affairs) looks after the
administrative part of current newsgathering, news selection, news processing, and
news evaluation and news presentation. Chief Editor News, Chief Producer News
and News Editor support him. The Deputy Director General (Communication &
Film) monitors the entire communication process of the organization. He is
assisted by Controller of Programme (Communication) and Deputy Controller of
Programme (films).

The Deputy Director General (Production & Transmission) looks after the entire
activities of Production and transmission and is supported by Deputy Director
Administration in the discharge of his vast duties. The Director (Finance &
Personal Control), guides, governs and controls the financial activities and
personnel works and in the discharge of his vast duties. Deputy Director
Administration and Senior Analyst support him.

The Department of Engineering is headed by Engineer-in-Chief who is answerable

to the Director General. The Engineer- in-Chief is responsible for the growth and
maintenance of all the engineering and technical activities. In the discharge of his
enormous duties, he is assisted by Chief Engineer (Project and Budget) and Chief
Engineer (Maintenance and INSAT).
The Chief Engineer (Project & Budget) supervises and prepares various projects
and budgets and is supported by Director Engineering (Study Design Coordination
with ISRO), Director Engineering (Teletext), Director Engineering (Purchase),
Director Engineering (Progress and Budget), Director Engineering (Estimates &
NLF) and Director Engineering (Transmitter Design).
In addition to that there is a large number of staff in Doordarshan which are
directly associated with pre-production, production and postproduction. These staff
members are-

• Programme Producer
• Programme Executive
• Video Engineer
• Vision Control Operator
• Lighting Engineer
• Cameraman
• Vision Mixer
• Studio Engineers
• Make-up Supervisors
• Script Designer
• Programme Assistant
• Production Assistant
• Audio Control Manager
• Mic Boom Operator
• Script Writer, etc.

1.10 TRADITIONAL MEDIA

Traditional Folk Media

Folk Media & Traditional media based on sound, image and sign language.
These exist in the form of traditional music, drama, dance and puppetry, with
unique features in every society, race and region. Various countries like India, have
inherited several rich, effective popular and powerful folk media forms, which
were developed over the ages and ensure the emotional integrity of the nation. The
development of electronic media transformed the globe into a village but could not
overshadow the folk media of different ethnic groups and regions.

Folk and traditional media continue to play an important role in our society and
the new electronic media are used to popularize some of the folk arts. Ingredients
of folk media are given special projection in the mass media and as such folk
media are being used in development communication (to bring about attitudinal
and behavioral changes of the people) and advertising. Messages on issues like
agricultural development, primary health care and nutrition; education, women and
child rights are projected through the folk media. The great majority in the rural
areas enjoys, performances of the folk artists as a relief from the myriad of life.
Many of them simply do not have access to modern forms of entertainment.
Traditional folk media can be rightly called as the ‘people’s performances’ as it
speaks of those performing arts which are cultural symbols of the people. These
performing arts pulsate with life and slowly change through time. Since decades,
they have been increasingly recognized as viable tools to impart development
messages both through live performances and also in a form integrated with
electronic mass media. They are thus rightly called as ‘Traditional Folk media’ for
communication.

For millions of people living in remote areas in developing countries, to which

information is to be quickly imparted, mass media channels of sound and sight do
hold glamour but often enough they mask the message. Thus, traditional folk
media has been persuaded to come out of their shell to give a personal touch to the
otherwise impersonal mass media programmes.

Behavioral changes are most easily brought about by personal interaction and
traditional folk media are personal forms of communication, of entertainment.
These forms of art are a part of the way of life of a community and provide
acceptable means of bringing development issues into the community on its own
terms. Traditional folk media are playing a meaningful role in the affairs of
developing countries like Asia and Africa.

Traditional folk media are rich in variety, readily available and economically
viable. Men and women of different age groups relish them. They command the
confidence of the rural masses, as they are live. They are theme-carriers by nature,
not simply as vehicles of communication but as games of recreating and sharing a
common world of emotions, ideals and dreams. Also, traditional folk media are in
a ‘face to face situation’ between the communicator and the receiver of the
message, a situation which energies discussion that may lead to conviction and
motivation.

In developing country like India, traditional folk media have proven to be

successful mass-motivators. During the years before the advent of the sound and
sight channels of mass media, the traditional folk media not only reflected the joys
and sorrows of the people, but also inspired the mass during the times of stress and
strain. They played a significant role in the freedom movement of India. Since the
country has achieved independence, selected folk media have been effectively
harnessed for communication of new ‘development messages’. Mass media have
extended the area of coverage of a folk performance, while traditional folk media,
with their inspiring color and costume, dance and music; have enriched the content
of the mass media channels.

Traditional folk performances like ritualistic dances, religious songs and

mythology based rural plays, though highly popular, have proved unsuitable to
absorb and reflect new messages on population, health and hygiene.
Communicators, therefore, have to test different categories of folk performances to
identify the ones that are flexible enough to absorb development messages to meet
the contemporary needs. Flexibility is the most important factor, which determines
the viability of a folk medium for rural communication.
Some traditional folk media in India are: Tamasha, Nautanki, Jatra, Bhavai,
Puppetry, Ramlila & Raaslila, Street Theatre, Pawala, Keertana, and others.

Music is the most popular folk & traditional media form and the various types of
folk music include mystic songs (baul, marfati, murshidi), devotional songs
(hamd, nat, shyama sangeet, kirtan), ballad (palagan, puthipath), community
songs (jari, sari, bhaoaiya) and snake-charmers song. Folk songs on hopes, joys,
sorrows, love, and separation composed by ordinary people are still popular. The
traditional melodies and lyrics of these songs were enriched by kabials (lyricist and
composer of folk songs), gayens (singers), dohars (co-singers) and musicians.
Ganasangeet (peoples' songs) is the latest form developed by the cultural activists
working for the welfare of the oppressed people. This type of song carries
messages on the rights of the oppressed people and a strong sense of patriotism.
Ganasangeet had inspired the whole nation during the wars. Instrumental music
has its own glory in folk songs. No one can think of folk music without indigenous
instruments like ektara, dotara, sarinda, flute and drum.

Folk & traditional media are very effective in communicating messages on

important national issues, largely because it needs a small troupe, the costs in
instruments, transport and manpower are moderate or low, and the outreach is
wide, particularly through performances in hats (market places in rural areas) and
bazaars. Patriotic forces during the anti-British movement used to organize such
groups to motivate the people in favour of Swadeshi movement. Simultaneously,
during the Second World War the British Indian government constituted a song
publicity unit to mobilize public opinion in their favour. The governments of
Pakistan, India and Bangladesh later strengthened the unit. India has created an
organization named the Sangeet-Natak Academy (the Academy of music and
drama), the main responsibility of which is to perform motivational programmes
throughout the country.
The most popular form of folk drama is Jatra, an opera type performance in an
open stage. The jatra is performed before rural people of all ages and both genders
during autumn and winter nights. Jatra, being a product of mass culture and having
undergone a process of evolution, represents different trends of the society. In the
past, the villagers themselves performed it. They used to build and decorate the
stage collectively with great enthusiasm and spend their own money for costumes
and props. The organization of a drama in any village was a great event, especially
after the harvesting season. Later, jatradals began to be formed commercially to
put on professional performances. People like jatra because of its communicability
and the relationship between the performers and the audience. Simplicity and
lively and informal presentation are the key features that have made jatra so
popular. Nowadays, modern songs and dances presented as fillers between the acts
are an added attraction.

Puppetry is perhaps the most outstanding traditional folk medium that still exists in
its original form. The puppet shows are used for educational and promotional
purposes and are very effective in development communication.

Painting on clothes and Pottery products is a fast diminishing form of folk

traditional media. In the old days, indigenous artists portrayed characters or
reflected events of Hindu mythology as well as from folk tales of Muslim origin in
their paintings on cloths or pottery. Quacks, village doctors and medicine sellers
often use the traditional cloth painting to promote indigenous medicines in the
rural markets. Quilts embroidered with the motifs of flowers, leaves and birds are
still popular.

The rally is another ancient means of transmitting public information. In the early
days, drummers from the court were assigned to announce the venue and the
schedule of a rally. Religious functions & motivational gatherings are frequently
used to inform and motivate people. Gatherings for group prayers like mass
congregations and indoor meetings of particular groups, unions or faiths are also
effective forums for building up public opinion. Although new forms of print and
electronic media are gradually replacing the traditional or folk media, oral
communication is still very effective.
CHECK YOUR PROGRESS
Q1. What do you understand by Traditional Media?
Q2. What is the scope of Traditional Media in a country like India?
Q3. List some forms of Traditional Folk media in India.

Traditional & Electronic Media

The traditional media is slowly transforming because of the impact of the more
sophisticated, more glamorous and more ‘powerful’ electronic media. Even while
bold attempts to preserve the original forms continue to make some headway,
principally by the National School of Drama, and directors like E. Alkazi, Girish
Karnad, Karanth, Habib Tanvir, Badal Sircar, and those of IPTA (Indian People’s
Theaters Association), the change is evident. IPTA, is one of the oldest performing
art groups in the country. Indian cinema, performing arts like music and theatre
and now even television have drawn their many personalities from IPTA.

The vulgarization of the rural forms has already started with the introduction of
film-style song and dance in the jatra, tamasha and nautanki. At the same time it is
heartening to see how skillfully the new media are exploiting the traditional and
folk media forms to convey contemporary messages on radio and television
particularly in programmes for farmers, workers and rural people.

Such approach and cooperation from the electronic media will strengthen the
efficacy of both technology based electronic media traditional media from our
cultural heritage. Thus, a happy and satisfying combination of the modern techno-
savvy electronic media and the traditional media would make for a practical
approach, though it must be seen to it that the folk forms are not crushed in the
unequal competition with the new media or the electronic media. It is, however,
unlikely that the electronic media will completely replace the traditional media;
rather, what is more likely is that they will appropriate the folk media for their own
political and business purposes.

1.11 SUMMARY

The term "mass media" refers to the means of public communication reaching a
large audience. When members of the general public refer to "the media" they are
usually referring to the mass media, or to the news media, which is a section of the
mass media.
The various types of mass media are:

• Television (cable, network, satellite, etc.)

• Radio
• Film & Video
• Print (newspapers, magazines, direct mail, etc.)
• Photography
• Electronic (E-mail, the Web, etc.)

The date of history’s first broadcast accepted by most historians of the subject is
the first radio newscast, which occurred in 1909 in San Jose, California- some 40
miles south of San Francisco. There, Dr. Charles David Herrold built a tiny
experimental radio transmitter and hooked it to an aerial which was strung over
downtown streets between numerous buildings. Over this spider- web of steel, the
doctor broadcast news and other programs to friends in the area to whom he had
provided free crystal sets.

Mass media in India is that part of the Indian media which aims to reach a wide
audience. Besides the news media, which includes print, radio and television, the
internet is playing an increasing role, along with the growth of the Indian blogging
community.
Television first came to India [named as ‘Doordarshan’ (DD)] on Sept 15, 1959 as
the National Television Network of India. The first telecast started on Sept 15,
1959 in New Delhi. The Indian television system is one of the most extensive
systems in the world. Terrestrial broadcasting, which has been the sole preserve of
the government, provides television coverage to over 90% of India's 900 million
people, setting the stage for India to develop into one of the world's largest and
most competitive television environments.

A combination of a number of discoveries by technicians and scientist from

different countries gave rise to the development of wireless telegraphy and later to
radio broadcasting. It took ten years for wireless telegraphy, to become a
broadcasting system. First, the World War prompted the industrialization of
wireless telegraphy, secondly in the United States the radio created a
communication environment in which amateurs could operate freely.
Newspaper industry in any country is related to the beginning of printing press and
it was Johann Guttenberg who invented printing press in 1455. Thus in India too, the
beginning of newspaper is related to the beginning of the press. The Portuguese
introduced the printing press in Goa, in 1557. British East India Company brought
about the printing press in India and first press was strolled at Bombay in 1674.
Ironically, the first printing press was strolled in 1674, yet there was no newspaper
being published for another 100years.

There was a boom of publication of magazines in India in the year 1980s. This
development could not be traced in English but in the major Indian languages as
well. In fact, it is seen that nearly four out of every five Indian periodicals are in the
Indian languages, and they have a circulation which is nearly three fourth of the total
circulation.

Before the actual beginning of cinema in India, there was the growth of musical
dramas, the theatre, jatra in Bengal. Music, dance, song were an integral part of
these performing traditions, this was the heritage of Sanskrit drama and later
popular folk performing traditions such as the ram lila, the ras lila, the nautanki.
So, when the first ‘cinematographic exhibitions’ of the Lumiere Brothers were held
in Bombay on July 7, 1896, Indian dramatists, photographers, magicians,
musicians and singers saw in them great potential for the re-telling of Indian myths
and folklore.

Prasar Bharati (Broadcasting Corporation of India) is the public service

broadcaster in the country, with Akashwani (All India Radio) and Doordarshan as
its two constituents. It came into existence on 23rd November 1997, with a mandate
to organize and conduct public broadcasting services to inform, educate and
entertain the public and to ensure a balanced development of broadcasting on radio
and television.
Folk Media & Traditional media based on sound, image and sign language.
These exist in the form of traditional music, drama, dance and puppetry, with
unique features in every society, race and region. Various countries like India, have
inherited several rich, effective popular and powerful folk media forms, which
were developed over the ages and ensure the emotional integrity of the nation. The
development of electronic media transformed the globe into a village but could not
overshadow the folk media of different ethnic groups and regions.

1.12 EXERCISES AND QUESTIONS

Q1. Discuss the classification of various mass media.
Q2. Trace the origin and history of Television in India.
Q3. Discuss the importance and development of Radio in
India. Q4. Write a short note on the emergence of newspaper in
India. Q5. Trace the history of Indian Cinema.
Q6. Write a brief account of the development of Magazines in India. Q7.
Briefly state the organizational structure of Doordarshan and AIR.
Q8. What is the significance of Traditional Media in India? How can we compare
it to the advanced Electronic Media?

1.13 FURTHER READING

1. Mass Communication in India Keval J Kumar

2. Audio Visual Journalism by B.N. Ahuja