Control of electronic media

Goood Mornnninggg!

The shadow of the Britishlingered long afterindependence onTheStatesman,the newspaperwhere I was baptized into journalism. Bangalore as a city was onceanglaise too. Look where the twohave arrived today! The Statesman,sustained byimperial corporate interests, centred in Calcutta, (before it becomeKolkata) had a classical liberal outlook.The Hindustan Timeswas supposed to be a trifle more Swadeshi,pro Congress,but not very differentfrom the great paper headquarteredin Chowringhee Square. The Statesman’slineageimposed some quirks on the paper:aspecial relationship with theBritish High Commission. Thisinvolved reporting everything theHigh Commission Press officerwhispered to the Resident Editor,News Editor or the Chief Reporter.The Political Correspondent or theChief of Bureau navigated deftlybetween South Block and the HighCommissioner – until the late 60s. The unstated political line wasstraightforward: In a democracy,people elected a government. Thenewspaper’s job was to accord utmost respect to the people’s verdictand, therefore, provide “critical”support to the government. Thekey word was “critical”. In otherwords, the government could becriticised on an issue by issue basis.The newspaper’s job was not to“oppose”but to “criticise”. The principle worked well in atidy political environment. Whatcould be tidier than Congress rule, across the board,at the Centre andin the states? Inside itself,the Congress contained all the politicalshades, amalgamated behind aprogramme for freedom. Duringone general election, S K Patil,arch free marketeer, and KrishnaMenon,indistinguishable from theCPI, contested Lok Sabha seats onthe Congress ticket from separateconstituencies of Mumbai. Chalkand cheese in the same tray!The 1967 Assembly elections indicated the first stirrings of egalitarianism riding piggy back onelectoral democracy.In eight statesSVD governments came to power.The new situation placed somestrains on journalistic impartiality. But the “adversarial” relationship between the press and the establishment worked smoothly byand large. Balance lostThe first major casualty of theassertion of new business andpolitical interests on the independence of the press wasThe Statesman’s first Indian editor, PranChopra. He was sacked by themanagement for having supportedthe United Front in West Bengal. But the real crisis came during the Emergency imposed by Indira Gandhi.The press was split.There were “martyrs” of the emergency (those who went to jail) and otherslike the assistant editor who supported the emergency to become editor. He later said his support was under duress – and continued to be editor after the emergency was lifted. The balance lost by the press during the emergency could never really be regained.The press threwup new heroes like Arun Shourie,who came riding a wave of antiCongressism, a trajectory whichled him into the BJP fold.Many editors established overt political affiliations.The rot had set in. After the emergency whenIndira Gandhi returned to power in1980, famous intellectual RameshThapar along with some editorspleaded with Ramnath Goenka notto revert to the newspaper’s traditional neutrality. “You are a oneman opposition” they pleaded.Gone were the days of cool judgement which was at the heart of theclassical adversarial equation between the press and the establishment.Newspapers were being invited to play the role of the opposition. The collapse of the Soviet Union altered the global and the national picture radically. Instead of the Press we began to talk of the Media because of the mushroom growth of national and regional TV channels. Newspapers in India have had a tradition of about 200 years. TV has no established lineage exceptthe officially controlled Doordarshan. TV, therefore, was driven more by the surging market than by any commitment to journalistic niceties. With such force did TV burst upon the scene that it simply couldnot leave the print media unaffected. The infection spread to print. Gone were Melville DeMello, Roshan Menon from radio: it was Radio Mirchi now! There was always room for the human interest story. My Alma Mater, The Statesman did a long series on the “Other Half” (the lowest of the low among the aam aadmi)for which the author,M L Kotru,won the Watamul award. The requirement now was not for a serious inquiry into the lives of the deprived. The demand now was on people who would attract the new Maruti-plus middle class, bereft of our classics, in frenetic pursuit of a mindless star system. The page 3 culture generated a bevy of bogus stars in the queue as promoters of consumer goods on TV commercials. Editorial meetings are nowbeing replaced by marketing strategy sessions. TRP rating is king, except that no one seems to know what TRP stands for, nor why it surveys Mumbai but not the 150 districts of the country where, at the witching hour,naxalites rule. (The writer is a columnist and Distinguished Fellow, Observer Research Foundation) In a democracy, no institution whose activitieshave a bearing on the public interest, can beunaccountable to the people. The media in thiscountry is sought to be artificially classified, intoprint and electronic media. The function of both arethe same, and in fact, the electronic media operatesboth visually and aurally and therefore on a largersection of the populace. It is therefore in greater needof regulation. In most of the countries, the electronic media hasbeen brought within the purview of some or theother regulating mechanism, internal or external. Inour country, the radio has all along been run by thegovernment and till some 20 or so years ago, the TVhad only government channels. With the entry of theprivate sector, there has been a proliferation ofprivately owned channels of TV. What is more, theyhave been functioning all the 24 hours of the day.With the uncontrolled and unlimited power in theirhands, it was only to be expected that some wouldtransgress the prudent limits of the freedom of speechand expression. The complaints of such violationshave been mounting. The present Press Council Act does not give thePress Council the jurisdiction over the electronicmedia. As chairman of the Press council, I hadprepared a draft of legislation, some time in 1998covering both the print and the electronic media, andhad sent it to the ministry. There was a resistancefrom the electronic media and hence no legislationcovering it saw the light of the day. It appears that the ministry has been thinking ofintroducing a legislation to regulate the electronicmedia, may be, by constituting a separate regulatorybody. The concerned interests in the electronic mediaare resisting the move, and have come out with theirown proposal for constituting an internal body forself-regulation. That is some progress as it shows thatthey have moved from ‘no-regulation at all’ to accepting some kind of regulation. Iam not aware about the government reaction tothis proposal. I would suggest that it may be worthwhile to give it a try, if the controlling body suggested by them has a sufficient number of independentpersons from outside the media and the body has jurisdiction to control at least the obvious violations of the ethical conduct and to impose effective penalties. It is also necessary that the government operates a channel or uses one of its existing channels, once a fortnight, if not once a week, to focus on the omissions and commissions of not only the electronic but also the print media. The focus may be on the good work done by them as well. This device will have its desired results. Care should however be taken to ensure that this programme is conducted by abody which is independent both of the government and the private sector operating in the media. (The writer is a former Chairman, Press Council of India) Goooood Mornnnningggg! Even if you happen to be reading this article at the dead of the night. Wake up to this greeting that radio made famous. And to the power of a voice that can melt even a don’s heart, like it did to Sanjay Dutt’s ‘Munnabhai.’ The Great Indian Radio story could be split into two parts: Post-2000 and the period before that. Almost every listener worth her/ his Binaca Geetmala song on All India Radio knows the grip the medium had over generations of impressionable Indians. And then, the late ’70s and the ’80s where a radio set slowly began to acquire vintage value so much so that the Bugles sang “Video killed the Radio Star” about radio glory that got cut short by television. And the ’90s that saw the coming of the FM stations. Radio Redefined. Cut to the past, to November 12, 1947 when Gandhiji said, “Radio is a medium of unparalleled immediacy, intimacy and power. I see Shakti in it, the power of God!” Maybe, that is one reason why the country’s biggest radio network came to be called Akashvani – The Voice from the Heavens. Half a century after the Mahatma’s exultation, its tough to see that sparkof divinity in radio; only a devil-maycare competition to jostle for our collective earspace. There is no data on the exact number of private FM radio stations in India that beam their stuff through the airwaves. Bangalore right now has seven of them, besides the one owned and operated by All India Radio, not to count the campus radio and Vividh Bharati’s multiple channels. And there is the satellite radio,Worldspace, that offers niche programming at its musical best. After the country’s first private FM radio station (Radio City, then 91 FM) was set up in Bangalore in July 2001, driving and radio listening patterns changed dramatically. Radio anchors, popularly known as Radio Jockeys, wenton to be demi-gods in public imagination, the unseen voice only adding to the mystery and charm. Each city had itsown pick of favourite celebrity RJ whacky, serious, witty as they came. Your favourite chartbuster song was just adial - or an sms - away. You could come on air to wish your neighbour’s poodle a happy litter-day, and just any day could be your red-letter day. Changing policies Five and more years down, there has been an unsurprising churn. Radio channels that were at the rock-bottom have come up tops, some toppers have gone bust, some formulas have failed, some glossy programme now sound jaded. What a station would never dare have done in early radio days, is now its sacrosanct Programming Policy. Radio stations have changed their music policies overnight to suit audience research data, only to find that they have lost even what littlethey had in numbers. Also, with multistations coming up in a single city after Phase II of the issuing of radio licences, the fight for the same audience has meant the absolute “massification” ofradio content and programming, leading to total loss of identity and brand differentiator, besides the huge drop inad revenues - even upto 40% as people in the industry admit in anonymity. Internationally, there is complete convergence of content on radio and internet (you can download your favourite breakfast show to listen to iton your mp3 player even while underground on the London Tube). It’s the radio multiplier effect I got to observe while in the UK last year to study the pioneer radio industry there. India’s radio holds huge promisebecause of the sheer diversity of languages and culture, that offers infinite possibilities. A radio channel needs to experiment, innovate, stand unique to clear the clutter. What that also means is the need for it to find an investor who is willing to stay in the fight longer for it to break even. A rare investor with passion and a deep pocket! The list is long for what’s possible on radio, but the actual excitement would be when News and Sports make their way in, if the proposals made by TRAI are put into practice. Until then, wake up to a Gooood Mornnning, Yef Yem style! (The writer is a radio and TV personality)