Lacklustre TV for Oriya viewers
Elisa Patnaik
Television channels may have made great strides in the country today, but when it comes to local channels in the individual states — it’s still a poor choice between a few amateur and average channels elbowing each other for a share of the viewer’s attention. And Orissa is no exception.
Even after nearly 10 years of the Satellite Revolution, a full-fledged, professionally managed, complete Oriya channel is still a distant dream for Oriya television viewers. The options that exist for them today are between ETV Oriya (a part of the ETV network), DD-6 (the 24-hours local Oriya satellite channel) and the Orissa TV (OTV) a local cable channel. DD-1 also has a few hours of telecast in the Oriya language, most of which are however, repeated on its sister channel DD-6.
While the DD channels offer a mix of both socio-cultural programmes, news and entertainment programmes, for the rest infotainment is the main ingredient. These channels telecast a variety of programmes ranging from local/national news; discussions; soaps; dance, song and countdown shows; games; movies and other film-based programmes etc. But when it comes to the quality and content of the programmes, a majority of them are a far cry from the sleek and professional presentations of other channels. While most of the programmes telecast on DD are drab and monotonous, the programmes on other channels ape other satellite channels, rarely offering fresh and innovative content.
DD I in Orissa however still enjoys a major chunk of viewer ship due to its wide reach. Doordarshan service was first introduced in the State in the year 1974 when a Centre was established at Cuttack to feed programmes to Satellite Instructional Television Experiment (SITE). With the Asiad Games in 1982, the first Low Power Transmitter of the state was commissioned at Bhubaneswar and the first regional news bulletin was introduced in the year 1988. In October 1993, the Regional Language Satellite Service (Oriya) programmes started and in the year 1996 regional programmes were introduced.
The 24-hour Oriya Language Satellite Channel was inaugurated in the year 2001 which was followed by the introduction of two news headlines at 3.00 pm and 5.00 pm. While the weekly transmission hours for the terrestrial channel with satellite support is 37 hours and 30 min, for the satellite (DD-6-Oriya) it is 168 hours. DD-6 programmes are mostly related to Oriya films, folk dance, music, and other cultural programmes only besides regional news. OTV on the other hand was the first private TV channel in Orissa launched in 1997 in the twin cities of Bhubaneshwar and Cuttack with a purpose of giving the viewers the latest on infotainment. A division of Ortel Communications Ltd., OTV is telecast through the SkyView Home Cable — a cable television provider in the twin cities of Bhubaneshwar/Cuttack and also in other towns like Paradip, Rourkela and Puri. The USP of OTV is a strong local coverage, in-depth analysis of unfolding events and live telecast from Bhubaneswar and Cuttack.
Starting from thrice a weekly programme, it now telecasts a daily news bulletin Pratidin that has become quite popular. However, the channel has a long way to go before becoming a 24-hour channel. It recently launched the entertainment sub brand "OTV Chamatkar," which will focus only on entertainment content and will showcase local talent and artists. The entertainment channel would be distributed in 15 major towns by beginning of next year. "OTV will now singularly focus on the news content, current affairs, panel discussions and debate. The channel is likely to go satellite by beginning of next year," says Mr. Santosh Sahoo of OTV.
The Oriya channel of the national network Eenadu TV was launched during January 2002 and has been gradually gaining popularity in the State. "We are reaching 36 lakh population in Orissa as per NRS 2003 from 17.30 hours time band to 19.30 hours time band and have also been gaining better reach and ratings," says an ETV Oriya official. "It is not only available in Orissa but beamed across 40 countries around the world."
Available in almost all districts of Orissa, the channel is providing low cost DSR (digital satellite receivers) to the viewers to watch ETV Oriya. ETV Oriya provides a variety of entertainment and news-based programmes. Though the programmes telecast by ETV Oriya are perceptibly better in terms of content and quality than other local channels, some of them are either rehashes, or dubbed versions of popular Bengali and South Indian serials.
Orissa’s cable penetration is very low compare to other states, but according to the last census, the State has had the biggest jump of nearly 65 % in both rural and urban areas. Which is precisely why more local commercial and satellite channels are expected to enter the fray and existing channels are planning to expand their reach and enhance the quality of programmes.
However critics say that Orissa still has to go a long way in terms of developing superior techniques and quality of production. Lack of hi tech infrastructure, better professionals and limited scope for revenue generation are some of the reasons stated. "Finding sponsorship for programmes is one of the main problems here and it’s only the small local companies and organizations which come forward," says the advertisement head of one of the channels. Orissa is a small market or rather a non- priority market for many top brands. In fact, channels like ETV Oriya are not selling the channel, but projecting Orissa as a big market
to top brands around the country.
Taking into account the mixed response it would be some time before more local private channels would like to test the waters. Until then local television viewers from Orissa have little to choose from, forced to be content with the existing fare.
Elisa Patnaik is a free lance writer based in Cuttack. Contact elisapatnaik@yahoo.com