Indian Media | Doordarshan | All India Radio

MEDIA

Broadcasting in India has flourished since state TV's monopoly was broken in 1992. The array of channels is still growing. Privately-owned cable and satellite stations command large audiences. Star Plus - run by the global media giant News Corporation - is one of the most popular. Its version of the game show "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" proved to be one of the channel's biggest draws.

News broadcasts are also popular, often outperforming entertainment shows. Many 24-hour news channels are up and running and more are planned.

Doordarshan, the public TV service, operates 21 services including its flagship DD1 channel, which reaches some 400 million viewers. Two multichannel, direct-to-home (DTH) TV operations - the Zee Group's subscription-based Dish TV and a free-to-air offering from Doordarshan - are recent arrivals on the satellite scene. A third DTH venture, Tata-Sky, launched in August 2006.

India's cable TV market is one of the world's largest, with more than 60 million subscribers.

Private radio is a relative newcomer. Since they were sanctioned in 2000, music-based FM stations have proliferated in the cities and hundreds more licences are up for grabs. But only public All India Radio (AIR) can broadcast news.

India's press is lively. Driven by a growing middle class, newspaper circulation has risen and new titles compete with established dailies.

India and neighbouring Pakistan sometimes engage in a war of words via their respective media, occasionally banning relays of broadcasts from the other country.

Internet use has soared; around 42 million Indians were online by 2007 (Internetworldstats.com).