Television in India has been in existence for nigh on four decades.

For the first 17 years, it spread

haltingly and transmission was mainly in black & white. The thinkers and policy makers of the
country, which had just been liberated from centuries of colonial rule, frowned upon television,
looking on at it as a luxury Indians could do without. In 1955 a Cabinet decision was taken
disallowing any foreign investments in print media which has since been followed religiously for
nearly 45 years. Sales of TV sets, as reflected by licences issued to buyers were just 676,615
until 1977. Television has come to the forefront only in the past 21 years and more so in the
past 13. There were initially two ignition points: the first in the eighties when colour TV was
introduced by state-owned broadcaster Doordarshan (DD) timed with the 1982 Asian Games
which India hosted. It then proceeded to install transmitters nationwide rapidly for terrestrial
broadcasting. In this period no private enterprise was allowed to set up TV stations or to transmit
TV signals. The second spark came in the early nineties with the broadcast of satellite TV by
foreign programmers like CNN followed by Star TV and a little later by domestic channels such
as Zee TV and Sun TV into Indian homes. Prior to this, Indian viewers had to make do with DD's
chosen fare which was dull, non-commercial in nature, directed towardsonly education and
socio-economic development. Entertainment programmes were few and far between. And when
the solitary few soaps like Hum Log (1984), and mythological dramas: Ramayan (1987-88) and
Mahabharat (1988-89) were televised, millions of viewers stayed glued to their sets When,
urban Indians learnt that it was possible to watch the Gulf War on television, they rushed out and
bought dishes for their homes. Others turned entrepreneurs and started offering the signal to their
neighbours by flinging cable over treetops and verandahs. From the large metros satellite TV
delivered via cable moved into smaller towns, spurring the purchase of TV sets and even the
upgradation from black & white to colour TVs. DD responded to this satellite TV invasion by
launching an entertainment and commercially driven channel and introduced entertainment
programming on its terrestrial network. This again fuelled the purchase of sets in the hinterlands
where cable TV was not available.

The initial success of the channels had a snowball effect: more foreign programmers and Indian
entrepreneurs flagged off their own versions. From two channels prior to 1991, Indian viewers
were exposed to more than 50 channels by 1996. Software producers emerged to cater to the
programming boom almost overnight. Some talent came from the film industry, some from
advertising and some from journalism.

More and more people set up networks until there was a time in 1995-96 when an estimated
60,000 cable operators were existing in the country. Some of them had subscriber bases as low as
50 to as high as in the thousands. Most of the networks could relay just 6 to 14 channels as
higher channel relaying capacity required heavy investments, which cable operators were loathe
to make. American and European cable networks evinced interest, as well as large Indian
business groups, who set up sophisticated headends capable of delivering more than 30 channels.
These multi-system operators (MSOs) started buying up local networks or franchising cable TV
feeds to the smaller operators for a fee. This phenomenon led to resistance from smaller cable
operators who joined forces and started functioning as MSOs. The net outcome was that the
number of cable operators in the country has fallen to 30,000. The rash of players who rushed to
set up satellite channels discovered that advertising revenue was not large enough to support
them. This led to a shakeout. At least half a dozen either folded up or aborted the high-flying
plans they had drawn up, and started operating in a restricted manner. Some of them converted
their channels into basic subscription services charging cable operators a carriage fee. Foreign
cable TV MSOs discovered that the cable TV market was too disorganised for them to operate in
and at least three of them decided to postpone their plans and got out of the market.. The
government started taxing cable operators in a bid to generate revenue. The rates varied in the 26
states that go to form India and ranged from 35 per cent upwards. The authorities moved in to
regulate the business and a Cable TV Act was passed in 1995. The apex court in the country, the
Supreme Court, passed a judgement that the air waves are not the property of the Indian
government and any Indian citizen wanting to use them should be allowed to do so. The
government reacted by making efforts to get some regulation in place by setting up committees
to suggest what the broadcasting law of India should be, as the sector was still being governed by
laws which were passed in 19th century India. A broadcasting bill was drawn up in 1997 and
introduced in parliament. But it was not passed into an Act. State-owned telecaster Doordarshan
and radiocaster All India Radio were brought under a holding company called the Prasar Bharati
under an act that had been gathering dust for seven years, the Prasar Bharati Act, 1990. The Act
served to give autonomy to the broadcasters as their management was left to a supervisory board
consisting of retired professionals and bureaucrats. A committee headed by a senior Congress
(I) politician Sharad Pawar and consisting of other politicians and industrialist was set up to
review the contents of the Broadcasting Bill. It held discussions with industry, politicians, and
consumers and a report was even drawn up. But the United Front government fell and since then
the report and the Bill have been consigned to the dustbin. But before that it issued a ban on the
sale of Ku-band dishes and on digital direct-to-home Ku-band broadcasting, which the Rupert
Murdoch-owned News Television was threatening to start in India. ISkyB, the Murdoch DTH
venture, has since been wallowing in quicksand and in recent times has even shed a lot of
employees. But News Corp has been running a C-band DTH venture in the country which has
around 20,000 subscribers.

In 1999, a BJP-led government has been threatening to once again allow DTH Ku-band
broadcasting and it has been talking of dismantling the Prasar Bharati and once again reverting
Doordarshan's and All India Radio's control back in the government's hands. Some things change
only to remain the same.

2000 - KBC THRUSTS STAR PLUS TO NUMERO UNO POSITION The year 2000 will be
remembered for a single show that dominated the Indian television industry and went on to
switch the fortunes of some media companies. Kaun Banega Crorepati, the Amitabh Bachchan
hosted game show based on Who Wants to be a Millionaire, not only became the most-watched
programme on private satellite television but also catapaulted Star Plus into leadership position.

On the back of the success of Star Plus, Rupert Murdoch built his media empire. If Subhash
Chandra had tasted success all through these years since Zee launched, 2000 was a turning point
in Zee's history. Chandra's dream of creating a media company that would march into the
convergence era faced severe threat and the internal weakness of his organisation stood exposed.
It was clearly Murdoch's year. After divorcing his business from Zee, his Star Group acquired a
26 per cent stake in the Rajan Raheja-owned Hathway Cable & Datacom for an estimated $50-60
million. This marked a re-entry of Murdoch into cable after selling his 50 per cent stake in
Chandra's Siticable and gave him a presence in a cable network which had around one million
subscribers.

Sony Entertainment Television, which was competing fiercely against Zee at the time, also
floundered as it came under the attack from three Star Plus programmes - Bachchan's show
which gave away prize money of Rs 10 million, flanked by the Balaji Telefilms' produced soaps
Kyunki saas bhi kabhie bahu thi and Kahaani ghar ghar kii.

The year saw the entry of Kerry Packer's Channel Nine in a joint venture with HFCL. The
HFCL-Channel Nine JV sealed a deal with Prasar Bharati, agreeing to pay a whopping Rs 1200-
odd million for a three-hour prime time band on the floundering DD Metro channel. This
revenue model was unsustainable, as would be proved later when Channel Nine withdrew from
renewing the contract on the same commercial terms. DD Sports was also launched as a pay
channel, trying to cash in on the India cricket rights which Prasar Bharati bagged in a successful
bid for five years.

It was also the year that saw the birth of a Hindi news channel, Aaj Tak, from the India Today
stable. This was to later fuel a news channel boom in the country. B4U, promoted by LN Mittal,
Kishore Lulla and Binani, was also launched during the year.

There was activity in the regional channel space. Down south, Sun Network continued to rule
supreme. Zee made a foray into regional language broadcasting with the launch of four channels
under the Alpha brand - in Marathi, Punjabi, Gujarati and Bengali. Rathikant Basu, ending his
stint as CEO in Star India, launched the Tara group of regional channels. ETV Network also
made a foray into regional language broadcasting.

Cable TV was getting high valuation on the back of ambitious convergence plans. Intel forked
out $59.23 million to pick up 3.3 per cent stake in Hinduja-owned IndusInd Media &
Communications. Chandra's Siticable was valued by HSBC at $1.9 billion. MSOs announced
upgradation plans, but the investments were more promised than made. The cable TV industry
grew to over 30 million subscribers in the year, up from around 28 million a year ago.

Telecom operators like Reliance, Bharti, BPL and Spectranet also began to dream of the
convergence play. Hopes on broadband emerged with players like NumTv.com,
broadcastindia.com, sharkstream.com, homelandnetworks, and spectranet.com surfacing.

On the policy front, Ku-band DTH broadcasting was permitted after a three year ban. Guidelines
were issued but a detailed note on how DTH will roll out mysteriously did not see the light of
day. Uplinking and ownership of earth stations by private broadcasters from Indian soil were
opened up.
No final word was heard on the broadcasting bill however. The idea of a convergence bill was
mooted, but it was caught up in a tussle between the IT, telecom and I&B ministries as to who
would play the steering role for convergence.

The door was open for private players to own and operate communication satellite systems. The
local INSAT system was offered for commercial use by private agencies.
Sun TV and Eenadu TV were the first players to get permission to enter the fray. They set up
their own earth stations and were granted uplinking facilities.

Meanwhile, Chandra's ambitious Agrani satellite project ran into export licence issues under US
munitions restrictions imposed after India's nuclear explosions.