A year of transition
That media is a volatile sector in
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
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,
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
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,
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