Indian Media- The Rhetoric and the Gullible?
Neil Postman in his book “Amusing Ourselves to Death” wrote:
“When a population becomes distracted by trivia, when cultural life is redefined as a perpetual round of entertainments, when serious public conversation becomes a form of baby-talk, when, in short, a people become an audience, and their public business a vaudeville act, then a nation finds itself at risk; culture-death is a clear possibility.”
Indian news media, at its core, has been a symbol of disgrace for many of its critics, yet it is one of the most powerful instruments to disseminate information for public consumption.
The total subscriber base for Indian television industry is expected to increase to 195 million by 2019 from 183 million in 2017(M&E-IBEF, 2018) which is the second largest subscriber base in the world after China. Where roughly 84 million households are DTH subscribers with rest of the numbers from the Cable TV segment (TAM Annual Universe Update — 2015).
The total TV penetration in India clocks up at 66% with 835 Mn Indians having access to television. This is of course aided by economical cable TV subscription plans of INR 120/month or Free-to-Air channels via free DishAir.
The BARC 2018 India Weekly Data report suggests that Aaj Tak, a prominent Hindi news media channel is the leading most viewed news channel in the Hindi Speaking Market(HSM) in all the three categories- Urban, Rural and U+R combined.
Aaj Tak, ABP News, India TV, News Nation, News18 India, Zee News are the top five leading news channels with most of the viewership in the HSM market. Similary, in the ESM, Republic TV garnered the highest number of viewership with BARC report suggesting Republic TV is the most watched English News Channel.
Contrary to many beliefs, Republic TV is in fact the most watched English News channel of 2018 with Arnab’s opinions founding mass appeal which might be a shock to many critics. On the lighter side, the high viewership could be a reason of the number of critics Arnab has got. The high viewership could also be a reason of the viewer’s acceptance of entertainment bits over purposeful quality discourse.
Presenting the news in a manner where the presentation of the content is valued more than the quality of information, be it due to our mind’s reception to such packaging or the unavailability of a quality content disseminating machine to masses. But this is not unique to just Indian news channels, we have seen similar news presentation across countries provided to the masses as a glossy attention-seeking fact-distorted entertainment cookie than what would be a factual and important news necessary to be carefully evaluated by every individual of the liberal and democratic society.
The BI-2018 suggests that the average time spent(ATS) per viewer is about 4 hour 06 minutes for Rural India while it is 3 hrs 44 minutes for the urban India. This includes all the genres including entertainment, news, lifestyle and health, music, movies etc. Though it cannot be a one-size-fits-all, as time spent on TV would vary across demography and psychography and behavior, most of what Indians watch also comprises of News Channels in their total viewing time. Evening Prime Time contributes to over 30% for Hindi, English and Regional News (BARC-2017). The below report by BARC shows us how Hindi News is among the top five genres in terms of reach.
Though the above data reflects on reach than time spent by each of the above genres, considering the reach is sustainable since it is average of all the weeks combined, we can assume that most of the viewership time would be spent on the top five categories.
However, the 2018 BACR report ‘What India Watches’, when analysed the time spent by viewers across Urban and Rural India combined from Week 37–49 showed that the time spent on News Channels is only 7% of the total viewership.
The same report suggests that “number of channels increased to 885 in 2018, of which 43% were news channels” with Hindi News forming an equivalent share of advertising volume of 5% as compared to Hindi GEC even though the reach of the latter is much higher. Though the advertisers are putting in equivalent volumes and the businesses investing in news channels, the report suggests a lower viewing time of news channels.
It could also be because of the frequency of the ad insertions and short programs on news channels which leads to a higher sustainable reach but not a continuous screen time as the nature of content on news channels differ from that of GEC and Movies which is more contiguous in nature.
With Hindi news forming a major chunk of our interest, views and opinions, is the common Indian man watching news content which is rational, well-analysed and truthfully reported without any predilection?
Let’s look at the top events which was highly captured by news channels in the BARC report-
- PNB Scam
- Karnataka Govt Formulation
- Padmavat Controversy
- Salman Khan Chinkara Case
- Sridevi Death
- Apple Exec Shot Dead
- Atal Vihari’s Demise
- Five State Poll Results
- Unnao Rape Case
- Asian Games
- Diwali Celebrations
- Terror Attack on Sunjwan Camp
- Union Budget 2018
- Karnataka Assembly Elections
- Tiranga Yatra
- Amritsar Train Tragedy
It’ll be almost impossible to analyse the media content and information quality for the full day and year hence let’s look at the topics of the Prime Time across top performing news channel. Prime time since the viewership is maximum at this point and the programs hold utmost importance financially.
For Aaj Tak, the most viewed Indian news channel, the two most viewed debate shows that run are Halla Bol(Raise Your Voice), broadcasted at 6 p.m till 7 p.m and Khabardar(Beware) which runs at 9:30 p.m to 10 p.m. Considering Indians, in both Rural and Urban cities are seeking most of the information from Aaj Tak, let’s see what this mass-appealing news channel shows us.
Below is the list of topics Aaj Tak covers with its top two Prime time shows-
The sample is taken from the two highest viewed shows of Aaj Tak- Halla Bol and Khabardar for months Jan-Feb 2018 and Dec-Jan 2018/19 respectively.
The most watched Hindi news channel’s top two debate shows which run in when the audience engagement is maximum chooses to talk about mainly below topics:
- Prime Minister Modi
- Rahul Gandhi
- Triple Talaq
- Muslims
- Dalits
- Terrorism
- Scams and Politics
- Temple, Mosque and Ram Mandir
- Celebrity information like Milkha’s arrest or Sridevi’s death
- Congress, BJP
- Imran Khan
- Kashmir
- Soldiers and terrorists
- Elections
- Coalition govt
This is the content that is reaching millions of households and millions of individuals. 835 million to be precise. This is the most watched news channel is showing when the demand is at peak. India, with a population of 1.34 Billion people struggling to provide basic needs, like food and toilet, does care about politics, who runs the country, how we’re better than Pakistan, what’s happening at the border, rise of terrorism, Kashmir and other few topics which our news channels are obsessed with, but we care about so much more than this. We deserve better as a population nonetheless as a viewer. We are a hard-working country wanting to thrive at the global front by being better than China and USA and not just by Pakistan which is far behind as an economy and a society crippled by its own religious and societal issues.
The gullible minds of an average human usually doesn’t care the cost at which this free news comes to us. The influenced subconscious is much more worried about the unknown minuscule threat of terrorists while more people died of diabetes and suicides than terrorist attacks(Source). We see threat because it sells. We are misled by fear. It is created, processed and packed in the most efficient way for your consumption.
Without even getting into the purpose of each of the above mentioned news topics and how we should care more about dying farmers than ‘Water Terrorists’, since there are already few media houses attempting their best at that, I’d like to cut this short and raise a concern.
Remember the reach chart I showed you above? Consider this toxic content daily packaged and thrown at the viewers set top daily and him choosing to watch it more and more is a much more dangerous situation(precarious for the society and democracy to say the least) than any other current threat. We have arrived in this content feeding world with various mediums providing what we subconsciously choose too early and probably under prepared. A gullible democracy falling for the daily rhetorical is an equally dangerous collective as a country run by a maniac motivated by his own Ego.
