Constructing an audience: news television practices in India

Batabyal, Somnath

Abstract

This paper is an ethnographic exploration of two television news channels in India, Star News in Hindi and Star Ananda in Bengali, part of Rupert Murdoch's burgeoning media empire in the country. It seeks to answer a couple of basic questions: in the world of private television news, who are the news producers and who is their audience? Through these questions, the paper tries to understand some of the fundamentals of news business; the intricate links that exist between television ratings, target audience groups, the journalist's news sense and content. It examines corporate policies in television organisations, which in pursuit of advertising revenue not only curtail editorial independence, but editorial imagination. I claim that despite the proliferation of news channels across the country, the economics of the television industry enforces a unitary vision of an affluent nation; an India articulated by the privileged for themselves.

Citation

Batabyal, S. (2010). Constructing an audience: news television practices in India. Contemporary South Asia, 18(4), 387-399. https://doi.org/10.1080/09584935.2010.526199

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Publication Date: Dec 1, 2010
• Deposit Date: Jul 6, 2012
• Journal: Contemporary South Asia
• Print ISSN: 0958-4935
• Electronic ISSN: 1469-364X
• Publisher: Taylor and Francis Group
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 18
• Issue: 4
• Pages: 387-399
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/09584935.2010.526199