TELEVISION SHOWS AND CHANNELS

Western television shows/channels, especially American shows have found its place in every corner of the world. Western television’s popularity in India, especially in urban areas, is traced to 1991 when CNN became prominent in the country, as elsewhere in the world, for its live coverage of the Gulf War.

For decades, Indians were restricted to the state television known as Doordarshan (DD). Doordarshan broadcasted discussions by government bureaucrats, old Hindi movies with singing and dancing, mythology series, and Indian cartoons like Jungle book, Shaktimaan etc.

Some of the famous shows like Malgudi Days and Mowgli cartoon were extremely famous shows in the old days before the launch of cable network and foreign channels.

Malgudi Days is an Indian television series based on the works of famous writers R.K.Narayan. Malgudi is a fictional semi urban town in Southeren India. Malgudi evolved with the changing political landscape of India.

In the fall of 1991, many new channels were introduced on Indian television. Channels like Star TV, BBC world, MTV, channel (V), an all day sports channel for the cricket hungary fans, CNN, Fashion-TV from France, Music Asia, Cartoon Network and many other Indian and International entertainment, sports and news channel.

Star television’s foray into India has gone through various identities. The identity of Star Plus has been completely changed to match its Hindi counterpart, Zee TV, with almost all Hindi soap opera and movie based shows. Even Discovery Channel along with English Channel started a 24 hour Hindi channel and the second channel Animal Planet.

Practically overnight, millions of Indian television viewers, long used to DD's staid educational programming and dramas based on Indian mythology, found themselves tuning in to the likes of "Baywatch," "Dallas" and "Dynasty."

Consumption of Western English-language programming is facilitated in India by the fact that English, which is one of the official languages of the country, is widely spoken in urban areas.

MTV is the most popular channel among teenagers in India followed by other music channels and channels carrying dramas and movies, both Indian and Western.

This hip generation finds that information on sex is also widely available courtesy of media globalization. Talk shows on adultery, seductive soaps like "The Bold and the Beautiful," and titillating pictures on the Internet are commonly accessible in urban India today.

From the above information we can see that Introduction of foreign channels and shows on Indian television have been a great success and it continues to be the part of the Indian culture.

References

http://www.tbsjournal.com/Archives/Spring00/Articles4/JFine/jfine.html

http://www.razonypalabra.org.mx/anteriores/n31/krampal.html