|
|
|
| | '''Urban''' |
| Print | 25% | 46% |
| Terrestrial television | 53% | 80% |
| Cable and satellite television | 20% | 46% |
| Radio | 22% | 25% |
| Cinema | 7% | 11% |
| Internet | 1% | 3% |
, especially news media, are undergoing significant changes in the current liberalised environment. To understand these changes, it is useful to examine the road traversed so far. This requires looking at media in two phases of
India 's history - pre-colonial and post-colonial. Each medium has taken its own evolutionary path.
Compared with many other developing countries, the
Indian Press has flourished since independence and exercises a large degree of independence. In 2001,
India had 45,974 newspapers, including 5364 daily newspapers published in over 100 languages. The largest number of newspapers were published in
Hindi (20,589), followed by
English (7,596),
Marathi (2,943),
Urdu (2,906),
Bengali (2,741),
Gujarati (2,215),
Tamil (2,119),
Kannada (1,816),
Malayalam (1,505) and
Telugu (1,289). The Hindi daily press has a circulation of over 23 million copies, followed by English with over 8 million copies.
There are several major publishing groups in India, the most prominent among them being the
Times Of India Group, the
Indian Express Group, the
Hindustan Times Group,
The Hindu group, the
Anandabazar Patrika Group, the
Manorama Group, the
Sahara group, the
Bhaskar group, and the
Jagran group.
India has more than forty domestic news agencies. The
Express News Service , the
Press Trust Of India , and the
United News Of India are among the major news agencies.
The National and the English press;''
The Hindu '' and ''
Indian Express '' ; ''
Times Of India '' and ''
The Statesman ''; ''
India Today '' and ''
Outlook ''; Pothan Joseph and G Kasturi; N Ram and Vinod Mehta; The Hoot and
{Link without Title} are not contrasts but a sampling of the range that needs to be covered here.
William Bolts, an ex-employee of the
British East India Company attempted to start the first
Newspaper in India in
1776 . Bolts had to beat a retreat under the disapproving gaze of the Court of Directors of the Company.
The ''
Bengal Gazette '' was started by James Augustus Hicky in
1780 . The ''Gazette'', a two-sheet newspaper, specialised in writing on the private lives of the
Sahib s of the Company. He dared even to mount scurrillious attacks on the
Governor-General ,
Warren Hastings ', wife, which soon landed "the late printer to the Honourable Company" in trouble.
Hicky was sentenced to a 4 months jail term and Rs.500 fine, which did not deter him. After a bitter attack on the Governor-General and the Chief Justice, Hicky was sentenced to one year in prison and fined Rs.5,000, which finally drove him to penury. These were the first tentative steps of journalism in India.
B.Messink and Peter Reed were pliant publishers of the ''India Gazette'', unlike their infamous predecessor. The colonial establishment started the ''
Calcutta Gazette''. It was followed by another private initiative the ''Bengal Journal''. The ''Oriental Magazine of Calcutta Amusement'', a monthly magazine made it four weekly newspapers and one monthly magazine published from
Calcutta , now Kolkata.
The ''Madras Courier'' was started in
1785 in the southern stronghold of
Madras , which is now called Chennai.
Richard Johnson , its founder, was a government printer. Madras got its second newspaper when, in
1791 , Hugh Boyd, who was the editor of the ''Courier'' quit and founded the ''Hurkaru''. Tragically for the paper, it ceased publication when Boyd died within a year of its founding.
It was only in
1795 that competitors to the ''Courier'' emerged with the founding of the ''Madras Gazette'' followed by the ''India Herald''. The latter was an "unauthorised" publication, which led to the deportation of its founder Humphreys. The ''Madras Courier'' was designated the purveyor of official information in the Presidency.
In 1878,
The Hindu was founded, and played a vital role in promoting the cause of Indian independence from the colonial yoke. It's founder, Kasturi Ranga Iyengar, was a lawyer, and his son, K Srinivasan assumed editorship of this pioneering newspaper during for the first half of the 20th century. Today this paper enjoys the highest circulation in South India, and is among the top five nationally.
Bombay , now Mumbai, surprisingly was a late starter - ''The Bombay Herald'' came into existence in
1789 . Significantly, a year later a paper called the ''Courier'' started carrying advertisements in
Gujarati .
The first media merger of sorts: The ''Bombay Gazette'', which was started in
1791 , merged with the ''Bombay Herald'' the following year. Like the ''Madras Courier'', this new entity was recognised as the publication to carry "official notifications and advertisements".
'A Chronicle of Media and the State', by Jeebesh Bagchi in the ''Sarai Reader 2001'' is a handy
Timeline on the role of the state in the development of media in India for more than a century.
Bagchi divides the timeline into three 'ages'. The Age of Formulation, which starts with the Indian Telegraph Act in
1885 and ends with the Report of the Sub-Committee on Communication, National Planning Committee in
1948 .
The Age of Consolidation that follows stretches from
1951 , with the extension of the Indian Telegraph Act to the whole of India and ends with the promulgation of the "Indecent Representation of Women (Prohibition) Act" in
1985 . The current age is the Age of Uncertainty, which began in
1989 with the introduction of the
Prasar Bharati (Broadcasting Corporation of India) Bill.
Press Trust Of India (PTI) and
United News Of India (UNI) are the two primary Indian news agencies. The former was formed after the it took over the operations of the Associated Press of India and the Indian operations of Reuters soon after independence on
August 27 ,
1947 . PTI is a non-profit cooperative of the Indian newspapers.
UNI began its operations on
March 21 ,
1961 , though it was registered as a company in
1959 itself.
J. Natarajan, ''History of Indian
Journalism in Part II of the Report of the Press Commission'' - is an excellent source.
- ''Aikya'' (Leading Marathi daily from Satara)
- ''Dainik Bhaskar'' ( Hindi daily) 22.5 million readers (NRS 2005)
- ''Malayala Manorama'' ( Malayalam daily)
- ''Mathrubhumi'' ( {Link without Title} daily)
- '' Dainik Jagran '' (Hindi daily) 19.2 million readers (IRS 2005)
- '' The Times Of India '' (English daily) 7.05 million readers (IRS 2005)
- ''Amar Ujala'' (Hindi daily)
- '' Anandabazar Patrika '' (Bengali daily)
- Grihshobha (Hindi)
- ''Eenadu'' ( Telugu daily)
- ''Lokmat'' (Hindi daily)
- ''India Today'' (weekly; Hindi edition most popular)
- ''Sambhaav'' ( Gujarati daily)
- ''Gujarat Samachar'' ( Gujarati daily)
- Daily Thanthi (Tamil daily with 14 editions and a circulation of 790,900)
Note : ''
NRS '' 2005 results do not cover the malayala newspapers because the findings are not consistent with the overall trends and may be disputed. Still, upto 2004 the malayala dailies figured routinely among topmost popular publications in India. NRS - National Redearship Survey. ''
IRS '' (Indian Readership Survey) is another such monitoring survey, which doesn't always agree with NRS.
