Television has emerged as a primary source for news and current affairs and a new survey undertaken by the Delhi-based Centre for Media Studies (CMS) indicates that TV is now relied on to by two-thirds of people for the latest news, both in urban and rural areas.

As a single source, more people rely on All India Radio for news than on any single newspaper. However, together newspapers, local and statewide, are relied on by 18 per cent of respondents as against 12 per cent in the case of AIR, the survey indicates.

Also, two-thirds of those in Gujarat who watched news on TV channels since the Godhra carnage earlier this year, think that TV coverage is "full and objective." According to the survey, one-fourth of people in Gujarat depended on local Doordarshan news for information, while one-fifth tuned into Aaj Tak and one-sixth depended on Zee News.

The survey was undertaken by the CMS in the last week of May 2002 in Gujarat. 1,950 adults, equally divided between rural and urban, spread across 12 districts of Gujarat were interviewed. The CMS researchers‘ agenda: to find out the source of information for people in the context of the Gujarat riots. CMS director P N Vasanti says the Gujarat riots mark a new beginning of a new chapter in the changing character of Indian news media. The survey also indicates that even in rural Gujarat, nearly 28 per cent of people depended on DD for news against 16 per cent who depended on Aaj Tak and 14 per cent relied on Zee News.

While all listeners think radio gave full and objective coverage of the Gujarat riots, according to the survey, nearly one-sixth of viewers of TV do not feel that channels gave "full and objective" coverage of riots.

Public broadcaster Prasar Bharati has floated global tenders for the supply of studio equipment, as well as for the supply of 1,100 set top boxes for digital terrestrial television.

The earnest money deposit (EMD) amount for the boxes has been fixed at Rs 200,000 or $ 4082. Among the other equipment required by Prasar Bharati are 32 teleprompters, digital edit VCRs, routing switchers, high quality character generators, plasma monitors, audio video monitoring stations and digital phone in units, among others.

The tenders, according to the pubcaster, will be on the basis of ‘two bid system‘ and are open to Indian manufacturing firms, PSUs and Indian agents and representatives of foreign suppliers. The technical bids for the set top boxes will be opened on 5 August.

Sony Entertainment Television is adding muscle to its 10 to 11 pm thriller band with some new offerings that are set to roll out in the coming months.
The band is currently occupied by one-hour reruns of the Aahat supernatural thriller series Mondays through to Thursdays, with CID and Achanak 37 Saal Baad on Fridays. The band is likely to see some new shows coming up post-August.

Fireworks Productions, which is behind Aahat, is currently updating the popular series that will be launched as a one-hour show, probably a weekly.

Siddharth Kak‘s Cinema Vision India is adding to Sony‘s proposed late night thriller band with a one-hour weekly fiction series. The show is a thriller but not run of the mill stuff, says Kak. "It will be a show that uncovers the mysteries of mystic India," he says. Kak is the producer of the series that goes on the floors in the next couple of weeks, while Shriram Raghavan will write and direct the serial. The cast are all fresh faces to television, says Kak.

Manish Goswami‘s Siddhant Cinevision, meanwhile, is producing Force One, the plot which revolves around a crack team of investigators who belong to a fictionalised organisation loosely modeled on Indian government‘s espionage outfit - Research and Analysis Wing (RAW).

Whatever may be the programming that is being put together by Sony for the 10 to 11 pm band, the channel has a veritable mountain to climb because it is pitted directly against Hindi entertainment television‘s top two shows - Kahaani Ghar Ghar Ki and Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi, both on Star Plus.

Prasar Bharati has apparently decided to give the fledgling DD Bharati a shot in the arm with some original content.

The channel has commenced a live phone in show titled Meri Baat in association with several schools across the country. Open to students in the age group of eight to 20 years, the programme is telecast five days a week from Wednesdays to Sundays, between 6 and 7 pm. The forum includes an audience of 25 children and 10 parents and teachers, besides three panelists who could be educationists, counsellors and doctors.

DD Bharati has also launched the shooting of an in house programme titled Kisse Ek Hazar, a series of stories sourced from across the world. Touted as an ‘endless world of stories, games, puzzles‘, the series will also see a set of itinerant story tellers travelling villages and towns, singing old and contemporary tales of great deeds. The 13 episode series is directed by Irpinder Bhatia, while music has been composed by eminent musician B V Karanth.

The channel is also sprucing up its cultural segment, the second in its three-prong vision of projecting the health-culture-children wealth of the country. It has launched a weekly cultural show Kala Parikrama, a Sunday evening show that is a round up of cultural events in the fields of art, culture, music and literature in and around Delhi. The programme, produced by Vimal Issar and presented by Shivani Wazir Pasrich, is telecast Sundays at 8 pm and repeated on Mondays at 10 am.

One point. If DD Bharati is being promoted as a national channel, celebrating India‘s culture, how does a weekly round-up of the cultural events in the capital qualify for a special slot.