A year of transition

BY hoot| IN Media Practice | 05/01/2009

That media is a volatile sector in India was affirmed afresh in the year gone by. How many significant shifts did we see in a single calendar year? You’d be surprised. 

The media business

Television went from being the darling of the stock market to its victim as the economy slowed down. TV 18, to take one of the most successful listed companies,  had a twelve month high/low of 599/92 in the month of October. TV companies like NDTV lost value sharply, and produced poor second quarter results. Newspapers retained value better, when valuation was concerned but found themselves reeling when hit by newsprint price increases. The year began with business newspapers Economic Times and Business Standard launching Hindi editions, it ended with all newspapers cutting pages and dropping supplements whenever necessary. It began with a regional media group, Sakal of Pune,  announcing big expansion plans in print and a foray into television, it ended with the group retrenching in a high profile centre like Delhi, and philosophizing that if Lehman Brothers could go down in a turbulent year, why not Sakal.    

Entertainment Television saw its reigning queen suffer setbacks both in the stock market  and in the industry.  Star India dumped the serial which made her famous, and her company Balaji Telefilms lost value in the stock market. But Ekta Kapoor found a new partner in 9X, and essayed a  considerable shift in fare, from Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi to Mahabharat.

In the carriage scenario cable yielded ground to DTH players, the country’s biggest business houses moved into this field even as Tata Sky and Dish TV consolidated. With TV channels multiplying carriage fees became first the norm, then dauntingly high, a barrier to entry.  What price media freedom when you have to pay crores for access to the market?

So much for the media business, what happened to content? First the gods returned with vengeance. Ramayan on NDTV imagine, Mahabharat on 9X,  Krishna on Colours. Then commercial television picked up from Doordarshan in woman and child messaging with the advent of Balika Vadhu. Colours found actors who made the messaging credible, even as the designer sets for this rural family’s haveli stretched credulity more than a little. The serial got ratings, even as Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi went off Star Plus after 8 years. The market for television entertainment is evidently changing. By the end of the year another outlandishly grand home became the centre piece for yet another social drama on Colours, Utaran.

Still, 2008 was the year when prime time TV experimented with issues such as class. And possibly gave thousands of household domestics who are a keen audience for TV soaps, a new aspiration: a servants quarter such as Damini has in Utaran, with a sofa set, and plenty of well-furnished space. When rural folk or the urban poor are shown on commercial television it has to be aesthetically pleasing.  Realism, they seem to have concluded, is bad for ratings.

Producing TV entertainment got even more expensive, one writer estimated that the new channel Colours was spending Rs 3.5 crore a day on programming. That is a high that has not been touched in previous years, but there has been no other year when two major general entertainment channels were launched by leading cable TV bouquets.

Dealing with terror

What changes did we see this year in the media’s handling of terror? They went from reporting just plain terror to Hindu terror and Islamic terror, they dropped the prefix alleged, they picked up and dropped masterminds according to what the police told them. They converted attacks of terrorism from news events to unfolding reality shows. Willy-nilly, they served the terrorists’ purpose.

As Sunil Adam wrote on the Hoot, terrorism is a triadic tactic involving a perpetrator, a victim and an audience.Without the media coverage of terrorism, he added, it would be reduced to what it actually is: a low-intensity and indiscriminate violence perpetrated by a small number of non-state actors with limited resources and reach.

Their pressure on the police also led to half baked investigations being put out, and young men being implicated without adequate proof. In 2008 the media was able to put a face  to the crime with far more alacrity when it was reporting terror blasts in Delhi or Ahmedabad,  much less so when it was reporting the mob violence against Christians in Orissa or Karnataka. Not until Malegaon and Hemant Karkare’s disclosures did what was termed "hindu" terror actually get a face in the media. Of course once they were on this track, everything became Hindu terror. Until the Mumbai attacks and siege happened.

2008, a year in which self regulation was ushered in nominally, was the year which saw the viewers turn against TV anchors and reporters. First for the way they exploited the sensation-mongering potential of Arushi case, and then for their coverage of the Mumbai siege in November-December.  Barkha Dutt was pilloried on Facebook and subjected to Internet critiques by ordinary citizens till she felt compelled to respond. Arnab Goswami, Rajdeep Sardesai, the Headlines Today anchors all drew flak. Viewers, it seemed, had finally decided to make television channels accountable. They were accused of class bias, and of imperiling the lives of those trapped inside the hotels.

Subjectivity defined much public criticism of television. It became a pronounced variable in the perception of media.  As Rajdeep Sardesai put it, TV was being asked to play God, and it was also being seen as the sinner. Said Barkha Dutt at the same forum, the Indian Express Idea Exchange, "I find that when the coverage of a particular issue feeds into what people are feeling, they don¿t have a problem with many of the traits of TV."

The year saw TV anchors make themselves the locus of public accountability. Today chief ministers are expected to tell them within  a couple of hours of a blast occurring who the culprit is. If they cannot they will be badgered.

Politicial bullying, political ownership

Media freedom never goes away as an issue in the world’s largest democracy. The year saw enough incidents of intolerance of free reporting to cause concern.  This was coupled by further additions to the political ownership of media in the country.

In one month, June, there were seven incidents of state governments/chief ministers/political parties  targeting journalists or newspapers. In Maharashtra, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, and Kerala. And as far as politicians acquiring media was concerned, Andhra Chief Minister Rajshekhar Reddy’s son began a 23- edition Telugu daily called Sakshi from Hyderabad and other cities. Earlier, the son of a Haryana congressman and former minister launched a satellite TV channel called India News. He was the brother of the man convicted in the Jessica Lal murder case. They said openly that their experience with the media had convinced them of the wisdom of having a platform of their own.  The channel made news in 2008 with its coverage of the Arushi murder case, and once again focused attention on the political ownership of television.

Public service television

In the course  of the year the public broadcaster Prasar Bharati  gave up all pretence of autonomy and moved even closer to the government of the day. Arun Bhatnagar, a former IAS officer who served on the National Advisory Council headed by Sonia Gandhi,  was handpicked to become Chairman of Prasar Bharati. The organisation’s Chief Executive Officer was also a retired IAS officer. Though MV Kamath and Nikhil Chakravarthy had been chairmen of the organization in the past, the pretence of having it headed by an media professional was finally done away with.

But it was not goodbye to public service television which emerged at the community level in a new avatar, that of India’s first community-owned radio station. Called Sangam radio, and having been long in gestation as a CR license eluded it, it came to life in October 2008. Other community radio stations also became operational in the course of the year, operated by universities or NGOs.