Reassessing television ownership in the rural

BY B S Chandrasekhar| IN Books | 23/02/2004

B S Chandrasekher

India may be shining but 81 percent of rural households in our country still cannot afford to buy even a black and white television set. In radio the position is not this bad, but still bad— 68 percent of rural households do not own a radio or transistor set. These are two of the stark figures on rural media provided by Census 2001.

Families in rural India which can’t afford to buy a:

The satellite television revolution of the 1990s provided more viewing choices and greatly expanded the viewership of television in urban India. Whether this revolution percolated down to the rural areas and to what extent it increased television viewing of the village community had remained a gray area with conflicting reports from different parts of the country. Now Census-2001 has provided the most authentic and extensive information on the spread of electronic media in the rural areas in different parts of the country.  The census figures have also exposed the limitations of market research studies in rural areas. 

The status of television in rural areas after a decade of satellite television as revealed in the census report is discussed in this report. The vast differences between the census figures and market research estimates and the possible reasons for the same are also briefly referred.

Diversity

So much has been written about the DIVersity in the country and rural television appears to provide the best—or perhaps the worst—example of this DIVersity or regional imbalance.  In the second most populous state of the country Bihar, just one out of eighteen rural households has managed to buy a television set but in Punjab a majority, actually three out of every five, rural households are rich enough to buy a television set.  In the economically developed states like Maharashtra and Tamilnadu a quarter of the rural households have television sets. As far as ownership of television sets in urban areas is concerned there are only minor variations between the states -excepting in a few most backward states two out of every three urban families own television sets.

Regional Imbalances — Rural Television
Families which cannot afford to buy a TV Set in:

Census-2001

The field operation for Census-2001 for the first time in the history of census was conducted in two stages — first at the household or family level and the other at the inDIViduals level. In the first stage information about the family like the type of the habitation, availability of drinking water and sanitation facilities, the number of bedrooms the habitation has and how many married couples share these bedrooms, whether the family had a bank account etc were collected. Some of the statistics collected at the family level have already been highlighted in the media with India Today making it a cover story sometime back.

At the family level information was also collected on the ownership of radio and television sets. This was the first time that the census considered that possession of a radio/television set is an important development indicator. This information has been collected from each and every one of the nearly 192 million households — 54 million in urban areas and 138 million in rural areas. The field operations of the family round of the census-2001 was conducted in the last quarter of 2000 and since then some more television sets must have been added. But there may not be much change in the pattern of ownership and comparative status of different states and regions, which are discussed in this paper.

It needs to be mentioned that census has provided statistics about ownership of television/radio. In rural areas many from non-television homes do watch television with friends or neighbours and in urban areas many radios might not be operated regularly. 

The Big Picture

 In our country television from the beginning has been mostly catering to the needs of the urban population and in the late 1980s it was estimated that hardly ten percent of the domestic television sets were in rural areas. The census figures show that now 43 percent of all television homes are in rural areas, which is a welcome development. However there is still an urban-rural DIVide in ownership with only 18.9 percent of rural households at the All India level having a television set as against 64.3 percent in urban areas. In contrast, 65 percent of radio homes are in rural areas. Still the percentage of households having a radio is lower in rural areas compared to urban areas.These details are shown in Table 1:.

Table-1: Television and Radio Ownership
(Percentage of families having television/radio)

In rural television ownership there are glaring regional variations. In Southern and Northern India nearly a quarter of rural households have a television set and in Western India one in five households own a television set. However in Eastern India not even one in ten households possess a television set. Census statistics confirms that regional language satellite channels have pushed up television ownership in South India. The prosperity of farmers of Punjab, Haryana and may be part of Western Uttar Pradesh accounts for the higher level of ownership in North India. In urban television ownership also there are regional variations but the differences here are small. These details are shown in Table-2.

Table-2: Television Ownership by Zones
(Percentage of families having a television set)

The differences between the zones could be better understood by examining the ownership pattern separately for each state within a particular zone.

Northern India

In north India about 24 percent of all rural households have a television set but there are wide differences among the different states. Among all the states in the country rural television ownership is highest in Punjab followed by its neighbouring states Himachal Pradesh and Haryana. Rural Haryana is said to have many of the feudal characteristics but the prosperity of farmers has pushed up television ownership in this state.

North India— Rural homes without a TV Set in:
















Rural television ownership is low in Uttar Pradesh as could be expected but in Uttaranchal, a part of unDIVided Uttar Pradesh, every third rural household has a television set. The details for different states are given below:

The urban television ownership in the northern states is around 75 percent except for Uttar Pradesh where it is 60 percent.

Western India 

West India — Rural homes without a TV Set in:
















Maharashtra is one of the most developed states in the country and rural television ownership is higher in the state than the national average. In Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan ownership is around the national average and only in the tribal dominated state of Chattisgarh it is very much below this average.

Urban television ownership in all these states is above 65 percent except in Chattisgarh where it is around 60 percent.

Southern India

South India — Rural homes without a TV Set in:

Regional language television channels are thriving in all the four south Indian languages and rural television ownership is comparatively high in all the southern states. The villages of Kerala have better infrastructure facilities and rural television ownership is also higher in this state. 

Urban television ownership in these states is around 65 percent.

Eastern and Northeastern India

Eastern and Northeastern India — Rural homes without a TV Set in:

In all the states in the east and northeast India rural television ownership is very low. In West Bengal one out of seven and in Orissa one out of ten rural households are lucky to possess a television set. As already mentioned in Bihar just one out of eighteen rural households has managed to buy a television set. The four Hindi speaking states were being described as BIMARU -the sick states that were on the lowest rung of all development indices. As far rural television ownership in the last few years the other three states have moved up and only Bihar still remains where it was a decade back.

Urban television ownership is around 55 percent in these states except for Bihar where it is below 45 percent.

Census and NRS

The National Readership Surveys (NRS) are considered the most reliable source of information on media in our country. The first NRS was conducted in 1970, followed up by similar surveys in 1978, 1983, 1990 and 1995. These surveys were limited to urban areas but from 1999 onwards a new series of NRS tracks have been initiated covering both urban and rural areas.

These are no doubt the largest surveys of the type conducted anywhere in the world but like all sample surveys are subject to two types errors- the measurable sampling errors and unknown non-sampling errors. NRS reports mention the range of sampling errors but understanding the magnitude of non-sampling errors is not easy. Only when there is an authentic independent measurement the nature of non-sampling errors could be understood. Census 2001 provides for the first time, a standard for validation of the NRS estimates. 

The fieldwork of NRS 2001 and the family enumeration in Census 2001 were conducted around the same period.  NRS 2001 had estimated that 28.5 percent of rural and 79.4 percent of urban households have a television set. Compared to the census figures in NRS there is an over estimation by 49 percent for rural areas and by 18 percent for urban areas. Obviously NRS paints a picture that is rosier than the reality.

It is not difficult to see why NRS overestimates television ownership. In census information is collected from each and every household. These include the households in the most distant and the most inaccessible parts as also those belonging to the poor and the poorest section of the population. On the other hand in Market research surveys with tight time schedules, convenience gets precedence and in the process the under privileged are left out in the sample. How this affects estimates could be demonstrated by comparing the census and NRS figures for just two states Bihar and Maharashtra.

Table-3: Comparison of Census and NRS Figures
(All figures as percentages)

The NRS sample is nearly representative for Urban Maharashtra where transport and communication infrastructure is better and is least representative for rural Bihar where such infrastructure is primitive. The purpose of this paper is not finding fault with NRS and this point is not being pursued further.

Rural Television and Doordarshan

The very low level of television ownership should be a matter of concern to everybody and particularly the public service broadcaster- Prasar Bharati.  Rural poverty is no doubt one of the reasons for the abysmally low level of television ownership in some parts of the country. Near-absence of locally relevant programmes on Doordarshan in these areas could be an equally important reason. For example Doordarshan has just two hours of local programming from Patna (the lowest for a major state capital). Similarly there is very little of local programming from Ranchi and Raipur.  It is said that Bhojpuri is the only language understood by the majority of rural people of Bihar but there is hardly any regular programmes in Bhojpuri on Doordarshan.

Contact: baguru@eth.net

(B.S. Chandrasekhar worked as Director Audience Research in Doordarshan. Kannada University Hampi has recently published his book in Kannada on the growth and impact of mass media in 20th century India. After retirement Chandrasekhar is settled in Bangalore and teaches Electronic Media in Bangalore University)