Indian Media Histories of Last Two Decades: Story of Innovations¹

India, an emerging economy, being a 5000-year-old civilisation, houses the largest film-producing capability, the third largest cable market globally and one of the fastest growing ‘pay TV’ markets in Asia.

“Mera joota hai Japani, patloon englishtani, sar pe lal topi russi phir bhi dil hai Hindustani” (My shoe is Japanese, pant is British, cap on my head is Russian, yet the heart is Indian), Raj Kapoor, the legendary Indian film maker in his film ‘Shree 420’ sang this line symbolising the ‘global personification’ of Indian films way back in 1955. But, in the last two decades, the Indian Hindi film industry regularised what it attempted for the first time in 1994 with the film Hum Aapke Hain Kaun (Who am I to you), followed by Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (People with heart will take away the bride) creating box office histories in the US, the UK and the Middle East. In 2007, in the UK, 14 out of the top 20 foreign films were Indian. These were part of a total of 69 Indian films that constituted 13.7% of all releases. On the television front, Zee started in 1995 in Africa and Europe, reaching US in 1998, and in 2001, to the Middle East and Asia Pacific. The USD 397 million Zee Group is one of India's first and largest integrated media and entertainment companies. It is also by far the biggest Indian TV player in the overseas market, with over four million subscribers and having 40% of its revenues from its overseas operations. Balaji telefilms, an Indian content provider, having produced 13,000 hours of programming in five languages over last 12 years, created assembly-line production processes, a reality in the Indian television front confirming to Adorno's 1944 conceptions of ‘culture industry’ (Adorno and Benstein, 1991).

In the Internet space, Rajshri.com was launched in November 2006 along with the release of the blockbuster movie Vivah simultaneously in theatres and online – a first for the film industry worldwide. After 9 months, Vivah had been downloaded 6,500 times at USD 10 each, most of it by the international audiences.

The newspaper business, in the last two decades, has seen umpteen examples of innovations. The Times of India (Bennet, Coleman & Co. Ltd.-BCCL), a 175-year-old group, signed private treaties with over 350 companies in past 8 years. It converted its 2005 company, Times Private Treaties, as a separate corporate entity, ‘Brand Capital Brand Equity Treaties Ltd’, converting journalism into a business of products and brands.

This paper tracks the journey of the Indian media and cultural industries in the last two decades and argues that the Indian media and cultural industries have been spatial-temporally global and it is not a recent phenomenon. However, the story of last two decades is that of ‘innovative’ approaches reflecting in creation, distribution and even global collaboration.