MAHARSHI DAYANAND UNIVERSITY

ROHTAK

Research Proposal
Changing patterns of Television news in
India:An analysis of mainstream Television
news media.

Submitted By:- Kuldeep

Department of Journalism and Mass

Communication
Changing patterns of Television news in India: An analysis of
mainstream Television news media.

Introduction :

Television is a mean of mass communication. In today’s era television have great role in
dissemination of information through news . It is a major vehicle for advertising
,entertainment and information. The idea of television existed long before its realization as a
technology. The dream of transmitting images and sounds over great distances actually dates
back to the nineteenth century, becoming an increasingly common aspiration of scientists and
inventors in the United States and Europe. after the first telegraph line opened up the modern
communication era in 1844.

History of Television

Television (TV), the electronic transmission of moving images and sound from a source to
a receiver. By extending the senses of vision and hearing beyond the limits of physical
distance, television has had a considerable influence on society. Conceived in the early 20th
century as a possible medium for education and interpersonal communication, it became by
mid-century a vibrant broadcast medium, using the model of broadcast radio to bring news
and entertainment to people all over the world.

Television became available in crude experimental forms in the late 1920s, but it would still
be several years before the new technology would be marketed to consumers. After World
War II, an improved form of black-and-white television broadcasting became popular in
the United Kingdom and United States, and television sets became common place
in homes, businesses, and institutions. During the 1950s, television was the primary medium
for influencing public opinion. In the mid-1960s, color broadcasting was introduced in the
U.S. and most other developed countries. In 1982 color broadcasting was started in India.

Mechanical Televisions in the 1800s and Early 1900s

Prior to electric televisions, we had mechanical televisions. One of the first mechanical
televisions used a rotating disk with holes arranged in a spiral pattern. This device was
created independently by two inventors: Scottish inventor John Logie Baird (J.L Baird)
and American inventor Charles Francis Jenkins. Both devices were invented in the early
1920s.

The First Electronic Television was Invented in 1927

The world’s first electronic television (TV) was created by a 21 year old inventor named
Philo Taylor Farnsworth. That inventor lived in a house without electricity until he was age
14. Starting in high school, he began to think of a system that could capture moving images,
transform those images into code, then move those images along radio waves to different
devices.

Farnsworth was miles ahead of any mechanical television system invented to-date.
Farnsworth’s system captured moving images using a beam of electrons (basically, a
primitive camera).The first image ever transmitted by television was a simple line. Later,
Farnsworth would famously transmit a dollar sign using his television after a prospective
investor asked ―When are we going to see some dollars in this thing, Farnsworth?‖

History of Television in India

Television began in India on 15th September 1959 as an experiment. It was a modest

beginning with a make shift studio, a low power transmitter and only 21 community television sets.
All India Radio provided the engineering and programme professionals. A daily one-hour service with
a news bulletin was started in 1965. In 1972 television services were extended to a second city—
Mumbai. By 1975 television stations came up in Calcutta, Chennai, Srinagar, Amritsar and Lucknow.
In 1975-76 the Satellite Instructional Television Experiment brought television programmes for
people in 2400 villages in the most inaccessible of the least developed areas tlirough a satellite lent to
India for one year.

Doordarshan is a Public broadcast terrestrial television channel run by Prasar Bharati, a board formed
by the Government of India. It is one of the largest broadcasting organizations in the world in terms of
the infrastructure of studios and transmitters. Doordarshan had its beginning with the experimental
telecast started in Delhi in September, 1959 with a small fransmitter and a makeshift studio. The
regular daily transmission started in 1965 as a part of All India Radio.

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, its existence came into being when Doordarshan became a National Broadcaster.
DD became national when it started to telecast national programmes in the year 1982.) In the same
year, colour TVs were introduced in the Indian markets. The first colour programmes were the live
telecast of the Independence Day parade on 15* August, 1982, followed by the Asian Games being
held in Delhi J The eighties was the era of Doordarshan with soaps like Hum Log (1984), Buniyaad
(1986-87) and mythological dramas like Ramayana 91987-88) and Mahabharata (1988-89) glued
millions to Doordarshan.

Prasar Bharati (Broadcasting Corporation of India) is India's national public broadcaster. It is a board
nominated by the Government of India. It comprises Doordarshan television and All India Radio
which was established in November 23, 1997.

In 1982, Doordarshan telecasted the 9th Asian Games using INSAT 1A satellite. . In 1982
color transmissin also started in India.

Cable and Satellite Television :

The decade of 1990s brought a big challenge for Doordarshan. The CNN covered Gulf War through
satellite and telecast it in national channels of most of the western and Asian countries. It has created
potentiality among the viewers to receive and watch foreign broadcast via satellite particularly in
developing countries. In 1992, a Hong Kong based group of companies launched STAR TELEVISON
(Satellite Television Asian Region). The programmes of STAR Television are beamed by Asian set
Satellite. Its channel Star Plus, Prime Sports, BBC and MTV (now replaced by V Channel) beam their
signal round the clock. The Hindi channel Zee TV also showed its programmes by hiring a
transponder from Star TV. The advent of Satellite television was a boon for cable operators. It
motivated them to receive the pogrammes of Star TV, CNN, ATN, CNBC, Aaj Taak, NDTV 24 X 7,
Headlines Today, BBC, STAR Movies, ZEE TV, SONY, SAHARA ONE, ZEE CINEMA etc.

Review of Literature

TV News Channels in India: Business, Content and Regulation

by Prabhakar Kumar (Editor), P. N. Vasanti (Editor)

THIS is the first book on TV news in India providing perspectives of 11 authors with a
statistical history of 10 years of TV news trends. The book is based on CMS Media Lab's
data bank of nearly 90,000 hours of prime time programmes of prominent TV news channels-
Aaj Tak, ABP News, Zee News, DD News, CNN-IBN and NDTV 24x7.
The book examines the era of explosive growth of TV news channels in India from the eyes
of TV news professionals, critics, researchers and academicians with national and
international perspectives. It provides insights on policy and regulation, and investigates
important aspects of ownership of Indian TV news channels. It highlights structural issues of
TV news in India and presents analytical case studies on the coverage of entertainment and
corruption in TV news channels.

Roy ,Prannoy , ”Analysis Of TV News In India - And What To Look Out For”,

Article published at NDTV web portal on June 29, 2017 .

The path to making profits for a news organization is littered with compromises that change
the nature of journalism, often so that it can no longer be recognized as a news channel. In the
quest for profits in the overcrowded market of news channels in India, several choices are
possible and different channels have chosen different routes, but the greater the success with
any one of these routes, the more the nature of news journalism changes.

The first and most popular option is to go tabloid and gain eyeballs. Virtually every single
Hindi news channel in India today is grotesquely tabloid.
In fact, Nielsen sent out their global head of security to India and, after a four-month
elaborate investigation, he said, 'I have never seen as much corruption of the Nielsen system
anywhere else in the world.'
There are many other ways apart from going tabloid or fiddling ratings, which some channels
do, to make profits - like blackmail and extortion, an accusation against the media in Britain
too. In India, there is also the widespread phenomenon of 'paid news', where newspapers ask
companies or politicians to pay for editorial space and it's not made clear to the reader that
this is an advertorial.

One thing is common in all these methods: so many compromises are made on the path
towards making profits that the channels either lose their integrity or can no longer be called
news channels.India's media may not be perfect, but in the world's largest democracy, on
balance some news channels,News paper, News Portal,Alternate media like you tube and
website based Journalism/media and its 'soft power', both television and print, have been
working for democracy. As India's media has grown over the years, despite all the baggage,
so far more news has been good news.
The writer says about the corporitation of news channel. Channels are compromising the
ethics of journalism. In the race of profit making they have forget about the ethics and duty
toward the people of these nation. The writer not mentoned the linkage of news chgannel
with the politician and corporates.

https://www.indiantelevision.com/television/tv-channels/viewership/analysis-latest-
news-television-trends-and-consumption-patterns-190319

The FICCI M&E 2019 report says that 43 percent of the 885 private TV channels in India
are ‘news channels’. It further states that news, which commands a 7 percent share of
viewership, garnered a disproportionately high share of advertising volumes.
The FICCI M&E2019 report quotes Zee Media Corporation MD Ashok Venkatramani : ―I
am bullish on News TV. With the elections round the corner, its consumption can only go up.
TV is still the best bet for getting the least cost reach and impact. Regional and hyper local
TV would lead growth.‖
Further, according to a Broadcast Audience Research Council of India (BARC) report,
after Hindi GEC and Hindi movies, Hindi news is the most watched genre in the country. The
report also says that contrary to popular perception, TV viewership is high amongst youth
(15-30 years) even in the digital age. Youth contribute 32 percent to total viewership with a
30 percent and 32 percent split between urban and rural India.
An earlier BARC report says that news events cannot escape the lure of drama. And drama
includes elections and election results, deaths of celebrities, high court and supreme court
verdicts on celebrities and sensitive issues, major changes such as demonetisation announced
by the central government, major public holidays such as Independence and Republic days,
terrorist attacks and counter-attacks, etc.
Until recently, (week 05 of 2019) BARC has been releasing weekly viewership data across a
number of genres – in the public domain this has been limited to viewership data of the top 5
channels and programmes for the specific genre for channels that have its watermark. There
are cases, such as Hindi GECs, performances across genres, etc., where BARC releases data
across the top 10 channels, and there are genres such as Hindi business news which has only
2 channels, or the youth genre which age. BARC has gone dark subsequent to
implementation of TRAI’s new tariff order and has stopped sharing viewership data in the
public domain.
Objective of the Study

1. To study the Presentation and dilevery of content.

2. To study the contemporary issues in Television news Media.
3. To study the dichotomy of people and politics through television news media.
4. Understanding the role of National news media in promoting Honest, Ethical, Issue
based and Unbiased Journalism.

Research Methodology

Study will be based on content analysis. It includes qualitative and quantitative news analysis
of television news media.

Content selection will be based on the television ranking of Broadcast Audience Research
Council (BARC). The Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) India is a joint industry body
founded by organisations Indian broadcasters Indian Broadcasting Foundation (IBF), Indian Society
of Advertisers (ISA), and Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI) . It is the world's
largest television measurement science industry body.It analyses the viewership habits of over 210 million
TV households (892 million TV viewers), which makes it the world's largest television audience
measurement service.

The Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) had in October 2020 "temporarily
suspended" the ratings on the news genre following a 'cash for ratings' scam allegedly
involving top executives from Republic TV. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI)
received complaints from the News Broadcasters Association against Republic TV alleging that it was
violating TRAI's broadcast sector regulations with its unfair practices and sought an investigation into it

But BARC on Monday (07/02/2022) said it will be restarting issuing data on news channels
from mid-March, over 17 months after suspending it. In a statement, BARC said the Union
Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has given a directive to resume the release of data
for individual news channels.

If the BARC rating will not be started then , I will do a random survey of on which behaf ,I
will will find out the top viewed news media channels.
Sampling

DD News , ABP News , Aaj Tak , Zee News, NDTV , News 18, Republic Bharat TV

The data will be collected on the basis of systematic ramdom sampling. Systematic sampling
is a type of probability sampling method in which sample members from a larger population
are selected according to a random starting point but with a fixed, periodic interval. This
interval, called the sampling interval, is calculated by dividing the population size by the
desired sample size.

References

Book

1. Vasanti, P.N. , Kumar , Prabhakar.(2016), ― TV News Channels in India‖, Academic

foundation:New Delhi.
2. Kumar, keval J (2020) , ― Mass communication in India‖.

Website

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television
3. https://bebusinessed.com/history/history-of-the-television
4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television in India
5. https://www.ndtv.com/book-excerpts/prannoy-roys-analysis-of-tv-news-in-india-and-
what-to-look-out-for-1430857
6. https://www.barcindia.co.in/
7. https://prasarbharati.gov.in/