The

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

n media consists of several different types of communications of mass media:

television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertisin ...

radio Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmit ...

cinema Cinema may refer to: Film * Cinematography, the art of motion-picture photography * Film or movie, a series of still images that create the illusion of a moving image ** Film industry, the technological and commercial institutions of filmmaking ...

newspapers A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as politics, business, sports ...

, magazines, and Internet-based Websites/portals. Indian media was active since the late 18th century. The print media started in India as early as 1780. Radio broadcasting began in 1927. Indian media is among the oldest in the world. It dates back even before the reign of

Ashoka Ashoka (, ; also ''Asoka''; 304 – 232 BCE), popularly known as Ashoka the Great, was the third emperor of the Maurya Empire of Indian subcontinent during to 232 BCE. His empire covered a large part of the Indian subcontinent, ...

. today Many of the media are controlled by large, corporations, which reap revenue from advertising,

subscriptions The subscription business model is a business model in which a customer must pay a recurring price at regular intervals for access to a product or service. The model was pioneered by publishers of books and periodicals in the 17th century, an ...

, and sale of

copyright A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, education ...

ed material. India has over 500 satellite channels (more than 80 are news channels) and 70,000 newspapers, the biggest newspaper market in the world with over 100 million copies sold each day. The French NGO

Reporters Without Borders Reporters Without Borders (RWB; french: Reporters sans frontières; RSF) is an international non-profit and non-governmental organization with the stated aim of safeguarding the right to freedom of information. It describes its advocacy as found ...

compiles and publishes an annual ranking of countries based upon the organisation's assessment of its

Press Freedom Index The Press Freedom Index is an annual ranking of countries compiled and published by Reporters Without Borders since 2002 based upon the organisation's own assessment of the countries' press freedom records in the previous year. It intends to ...

. In 2022, India was ranked 150th out of 180 countries, which declined from 133rd rank in 2016. It stated that this was due to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's

Bharatiya Janata Party The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP; ; ) is a political party in India, and one of the two major Indian political parties alongside the Indian National Congress. Since 2014, it has been the ruling political party in India under Narendra Modi ...

and their followers of

Hindutva Hindutva () is the predominant form of Hindu nationalism in India. The term was formulated as a political ideology by Vinayak Damodar Savarkar in 1923. It is used by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP), the ...

having greater exertion of control of the media.

Freedom house Freedom House is a non-profit, majority U.S. government funded organization in Washington, D.C., that conducts research and advocacy on democracy, political freedom, and human rights. Freedom House was founded in October 1941, and Wendell Wil ...

, a US-based NGO stated in its 2021 report that harassment of journalists increased under Modi's administration. The English-language media of India are described as traditionally

left-leaning Left-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy. Left-wing politics typically involve a concern for those in soci ...

liberal, which has been a point of friction recently due to an upsurge in popularity of

Hindu nationalist Hindu nationalism has been collectively referred to as the expression of social and political thought, based on the native spiritual and cultural traditions of the Indian subcontinent. "Hindu nationalism" or the correct term ''Hindū rāṣṭ ...

politics. According to ''BBC News'', "A look at Indian news channels - be it English or Hindi - shows that fairly one-sided news prevails. And that side is BJP and Hindutva." ''

Hicky's Bengal Gazette ''Hicky's Bengal Gazette or the Original Calcutta General Advertiser'' was an English-language weekly newspaper published in Kolkata (then Calcutta), the capital of British India(then Known as the Presidency of Fort William.. It was the first ...

'', founded in 1780, was the first Indian newspaper.

Auguste and Louis Lumière The Lumière brothers (, ; ), Auguste Marie Louis Nicolas Lumière (19 October 1862 – 10 April 1954) and Louis Jean Lumière (5 October 1864 – 6 June 1948), were French manufacturers of photography equipment, best known for their ''Ciném ...

moving pictures were screened in

Bombay Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the second- ...

during July 1895, and

radio broadcasting Radio broadcasting is transmission of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a land-based radio ...

began in 1927.

Press Council of Indian act 1978

The

Press Council of India The Press Council of India is a statutory, adjudicating organisation in India formed in 1966 by its parliament. It is the self-regulatory watchdog of the press, for the press and by the press, that operates under the Press Council Act of 1978., Q ...

acts as a mechanism for the press to regulate itself. It ensures that the Indian press is free and responsible. If the press is to function effectively as the watchdog of public interest, it must have a secure freedom of expression, unfettered and unhindered by any authority, organised bodies, or individuals. It ensures that the press must, therefore, scrupulously adhere to accepted norms of journalistic ethics and maintain high standards of professional conduct. Where the norms are breached and the freedom is defiled by unprofessional conduct, a way must exist to check and control it. But control by the government or official authorities may prove destructive of this freedom. Therefore, the best way is to let the peers of the profession, assisted by a few discerning laymen, regulate it through a properly structured, representative, and impartial machinery. Hence, the Press Council of India was established.

Overview

The traditional print media, but also the television media, are largely family-owned and often partake in

self-censorship Self-censorship is the act of censoring or classifying one's own discourse. This is done out of fear of, or deference to, the sensibilities or preferences (actual or perceived) of others and without overt pressure from any specific party or insti ...

, primarily due to political ties by the owner and the

establishment Establishment may refer to: * The Establishment, a dominant group or elite that controls a polity or an organization * The Establishment (club), a 1960s club in London, England * The Establishment (Pakistan), political terminology for the military ...

. However, the

new media New media describes communication technologies that enable or enhance interaction between users as well as interaction between users and content. In the middle of the 1990s, the phrase "new media" became widely used as part of a sales pitch for ...

are generally more professional and corporate-owned, though these, too, have been acquired or affiliated with established figures. At the same time, the Indian media, viewed as "feisty," have also not reported on issues of the media itself.

Print

The first newspaper printed in India was ''

'', started in 1780 under the

British Raj The British Raj (; from Hindi ''rāj'': kingdom, realm, state, or empire) was the rule of the British Crown on the Indian subcontinent; * * it is also called Crown rule in India, * * * * or Direct rule in India, * Quote: "Mill, who was himsel ...

James Augustus Hicky James Augustus Hicky was an Irishman who launched the first printed newspaper in India, '' Hicky's Bengal Gazette''. Early life Hicky was born in Ireland around the year 1740. While young, he moved to London to apprentice with William Faden, a ...

. Other newspapers such as ''The India Gazette'', ''The Calcutta Gazette'', ''

The Madras Courier The ''Madras Courier'' was the first newspaper to be published in Madras, Madras Presidency, British India The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisio ...

'' (1785), and '' The Bombay Herald'' (1789) soon followed. These newspapers carried news of the areas under the

British rule The British Raj (; from Hindi ''rāj'': kingdom, realm, state, or empire) was the rule of the British Crown on the Indian subcontinent; * * it is also called Crown rule in India, * * * * or Direct rule in India, * Quote: "Mill, who was himsel ...

. The ''

Bombay Samachar The'Mumbai Samachar'', is the oldest continuously published newspaper in India. Established in 1822 by Fardunjee Marzban, it is published in Gujarati and English. History The ''Mumbai Samachar'', Asia's oldest continuously published newspap ...

'', founded in 1822 and printed in

Gujarati Gujarati may refer to: * something of, from, or related to Gujarat, a state of India * Gujarati people, the major ethnic group of Gujarat * Gujarati language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by them * Gujarati languages, the Western Indo-Aryan sub ...

is the oldest newspaper in Asia still in print. On 30 May 1826 '' Udant Martand'' (The Rising Sun), the first

Hindi-language Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been de ...

newspaper published in

, started from Calcutta (now

Kolkata Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , the official name until 2001) is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal, on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary business, comme ...

), published every Tuesday by Pt. Jugal Kishore Shukla. Even after independence from Britain in 1947, the English-language papers were prominent due to a number of reasons. The telegraphic circuits of news agencies used the

Roman Alphabet The Latin alphabet or Roman alphabet is the collection of letters originally used by the ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered with the exception of extensions (such as diacritics), it used to write English and the o ...

and the

Morse code Morse code is a method used in telecommunication to encode text characters as standardized sequences of two different signal durations, called ''dots'' and ''dashes'', or ''dits'' and ''dahs''. Morse code is named after Samuel Morse, one of ...

, giving the English press an advantage in speed. The speed of typesetting was also much slower in Indian languages because of the

Diacritic A diacritic (also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or accent) is a glyph added to a letter or to a basic glyph. The term derives from the Ancient Greek (, "distinguishing"), from (, "to distinguish"). The word ''diacriti ...

s. Also, the press largely relied on advertisements of imported goods for revenue, and the foreign advertisers naturally preferred English-language media. The language of the administration had also remained English. Currently India publishes about 1,000

Hindi Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been de ...

dailies that have a total circulation of about 80 million copies. English, the

second language A person's second language, or L2, is a language that is not the native language (first language or L1) of the speaker, but is learned later. A second language may be a neighbouring language, another language of the speaker's home country, or a fo ...

in terms of number of daily newspapers, has about 250 dailies with a circulation of about 40 million copies. The prominent Hindi newspapers are ''

Dainik Jagran ''Dainik Jagran'' ( Hi:दैनिक जागरन , , ) is an Indian Hindi language daily newspaper. It was ranked 5th in the world and 2nd in India by circulation in 2016. In 2019 Quarter 4, according to Indian Readership Survey, Daini ...

'', ''

Dainik Bhaskar ''Dainik Bhaskar ''is India's largest Hindi-language daily newspaper owned by the Dainik Bhaskar Group. According to Audit Bureau of Circulations, it is ranked 3rd in the world by circulation and is the largest newspaper in India by circula ...

'', ''

Amar Ujala ''Amar Ujala'' is a Hindi-language daily newspaper published in India which was founded in 1948. It has 21 editions in six states and two union territories covering 180 districts. It has a circulation of around two million copies. The 2017 Ind ...

'', '' Devbhumi Mirror'', ''

Navbharat Times ''Navbharat Times'' (NBT) a Hindi newspaper distributed in Delhi, Mumbai, Lucknow and Kanpur. It is from the stable of Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd (BCCL), which also publishes other dailies including ''The Times of India'', ''The Economic Tim ...

'', ''

Hindustan Dainik ''Hindustan'' or ''Hindustan Dainik'' is an Indian Hindi-language daily newspaper. According to Audit Bureau of Circulations, it is ranked 13th in the world by circulation and 6th in India. Madan Mohan Malaviya launched it in 1936. It i ...

'', ''

Prabhat Khabar Prabhat Khabar is a Hindi language newspaper published daily in Jharkhand, Bihar and West Bengal. The newspaper is circulated in several states in India, including Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal and some parts of Orissa. It was founded in August 1 ...

'', ''

Rajasthan Patrika ''Rajasthan Patrika'' is an Indian Hindi-language daily newspaper. It was founded by Karpoor Chandra Kulish in 1956 and published as ''Rajasthan Patrika'' in Delhi and Rajasthan, and as ''Patrika'' in 9 other states. As per Indian Readership S ...

'', and '' Dainik Aaj''. In terms of readership, ''

'' is the most popular Hindi daily with a total readership (TR) of 70,377,000, according to

IRS The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is the revenue service for the United States federal government, which is responsible for collecting U.S. federal taxes and administering the Internal Revenue Code, the main body of the federal statutory tax ...

Q1 2019. ''

'' is the second most popular with a total readership of 51,405,000. ''

'' with a TR of 47,645,000, ''

'' with a TR of 18,036,000 and ''

'' with a TR of 14,102,000 are placed at the next three positions. The total readership of the top 10 Hindi dailies is estimated at 188.68 million, nearly five times that of the top 10 English dailies that have a 38.76 million total readership. The prominent English newspapers are ''

The Times of India ''The Times of India'', also known by its abbreviation ''TOI'', is an Indian English-language daily newspaper and digital news media owned and managed by The Times Group. It is the third-largest newspaper in India by circulation and largest ...

'', founded in 1838 as ''The Bombay Times and Journal of Commerce'' by Bennett, Coleman and Co. Ltd, a colonial enterprise now owned by an Indian conglomerate;

The Times Group Bennett, Coleman and Company Limited, (abbreviated as B.C.C.L. and d/b/a The Times Group), is an Indian media conglomerate headquartered in Mumbai, Maharashtra. The company remains a family-owned business with Sahu Jain family owning a majority ...

. ''

The Hindustan Times ''Hindustan Times'' is an Indian English-language daily newspaper based in Delhi. It is the flagship publication of HT Media, an entity controlled by the KK Birla family, and is owned by Shobhana Bhartia. It was founded by Sunder Singh Lyall ...

'' was founded in 1924 during the

Indian Independence Movement The Indian independence movement was a series of historic events with the ultimate aim of ending British Raj, British rule in India. It lasted from 1857 to 1947. The first nationalistic revolutionary movement for Indian independence emerged ...

Hindustan ''Hindūstān'' ( , from '' Hindū'' and ''-stān''), also sometimes spelt as Hindōstān ( ''Indo-land''), along with its shortened form ''Hind'' (), is the Persian-language name for the Indian subcontinent that later became commonly used by ...

' being the historical name of

), it is published by

HT Media Ltd HT Media is an Indian mass media company based in Delhi, India. It has holdings in print, electronic and digital media. HT Media's flagship newspaper is the ''Hindustan Times'', the second most widely read English newspaper in India after ''The ...

. ''

The Hindu ''The Hindu'' is an Indian English-language daily newspaper owned by The Hindu Group, headquartered in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. It began as a weekly in 1878 and became a daily in 1889. It is one of the Indian newspapers of record and the secon ...

'' was founded in 1878 by a group known as the

Triplicane Triplicane, known in the vernacular as Thiruvallikeni, is one of the oldest neighbourhoods of Chennai, India. It is situated on the Bay of Bengal coast and about from Fort St George. The average elevation of the neighbourhood is 14 metres ...

Six consisting of four law students and two teachers in

Madras Chennai (, ), formerly known as Madras ( the official name until 1996), is the capital city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost Indian state. The largest city of the state in area and population, Chennai is located on the Coromandel Coast of th ...

(now

Chennai Chennai (, ), formerly known as Madras ( the official name until 1996), is the capital city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost Indian state. The largest city of the state in area and population, Chennai is located on the Coromandel Coast of th ...

), it is now owned by

The Hindu Group The Hindu Group is an Indian publishing company based in Chennai. Its first publication was ''The Hindu'', a daily newspaper that began publication in 1878. Hindu Group Publications The Hindu Group publishes a number of newspapers and magazines ...

. In the 1950s, 214 daily newspapers were published in the country.Thomas, 105 Out of these, 44 were English language dailies while the rest were published in various

regional In geography, regions, otherwise referred to as zones, lands or territories, are areas that are broadly divided by physical characteristics (physical geography), human impact characteristics (human geography), and the interaction of humanity and t ...

and national languages. This number rose to 3,805 dailies in 1993 with the total number of newspapers published in the country having reached 35,595. The main regional newspapers of India include the

Marathi language Marathi (; ''Marāṭhī'', ) is an Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan language predominantly spoken by Marathi people in the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is the official language of Maharashtra, and additional official language in the state o ...

Lokmat ''Lokmat'' () is a Marathi language newspaper published in Maharashtra state. Founded in 1971 by Jawaharlal Darda, it is the largest read regional language newspaper in India with more than 18 million readers and the No. 1 Marathi newspaper i ...

'', the

Gujarati Language Gujarati (; gu, ગુજરાતી, Gujarātī, translit-std=ISO, label=Gujarati script, ) is an Indo-Aryan language native to the Indian state of Gujarat and spoken predominantly by the Gujarati people. Gujarati is descended from Old Gu ...

Gujarat Samachar ''Gujarat Samachar'' is a Gujarati-language daily newspaper published in India. Its headquarters are in Ahmedabad with a branch in Surat. It is distributed from Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Surat, Rajkot, Bhavnagar, Mumbai, Mehsana, Bhuj and New Y ...

'', the

Malayalam language Malayalam (; , ) is a Dravidian language spoken in the Indian state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry (Mahé district) by the Malayali people. It is one of 22 scheduled languages of India. Malayalam was des ...

Malayala Manorama ''Malayala Manorama'' is a morning newspaper in Malayalam published from Kottayam, Kerala, India by the Malayala Manorama Company Limited. Currently headed by Mammen Mathew; it was first published as a weekly on 22 March 1888, and currently has ...

'', the

Tamil language Tamil (; ' , ) is a Dravidian language natively spoken by the Tamil people of South Asia. Tamil is an official language of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, the sovereign nations of Sri Lanka and Singapore, and the Indian territory of Pudu ...

Daily Thanthi ''Dina Thanthi'' ( en, Daily Mail; known as Daily Thanthi in English) is a Tamil language daily newspaper. It was founded by S. P. Adithanar in Madurai in 1942. ''Dina Thanthi'' is India's largest daily printed in the Tamil language and the nin ...

'', the

Telugu language Telugu (; , ) is a Dravidian language spoken by Telugu people predominantly living in the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, where it is also the official language. It is the most widely spoken member of the Dravidian language fami ...

Eenadu ''Eenadu'' () is the largest circulated Telugu-language daily newspaper of India sold mostly in the states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.Kannada language Kannada (; ಕನ್ನಡ, ), originally romanised Canarese, is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by the people of Karnataka in southwestern India, with minorities in all neighbouring states. It has around 47 million native sp ...

Vijaya Karnataka ''Vijaya Karnataka'' is a Kannada newspaper published from a number of cities in Karnataka. The newspaper is published from Bengaluru, Hubballi, Mangaluru, Shivamogga, Kalaburagi, Gangavathi, Belagavi, Davanagere, Hassan, Chitradurga. It wa ...

'' and the

Bengali language Bengali ( ), generally known by its endonym Bangla (, ), is an Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan language native to the Bengal region of South Asia. It is the official, national, and most widely spoken language of Bangladesh and the second m ...

Anandabazar Patrika ''Anandabazar Patrika'' (Bengali: আনন্দবাজার পত্রিকা, ) is an Indian Bengali-language daily newspaper owned by the ABP Group. According to the Audit Bureau of Circulations, it has a circulation of 1 million cop ...

''. Newspaper sales in the country increased by 11.22% in 2007. By 2007, 62 of the world's best selling newspaper dailies were published in China, Japan, and

. India consumed 99 million newspaper copies as of 2007—making it the second largest market in the world for newspapers.

Dailies in India

*Top 10 Hindi Dailies :''Ref: Indian Readership Survey Q4 2019 pdf'' *Top 10 English dailies :''Ref: Indian Readership Surve
Q1_2019_[1
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Magazines in India

*Top 10 Hindi magazines :''Ref: Indian Readership Survey Q1 201

/small>'' *Top 10 English magazines :''Ref: Indian Readership Survey Q1 201

/small>'' *Top 10 regional magazines :''Ref: Indian Readership Survey Q1 201

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Broadcasting

Radio broadcasting was initiated in 1927 but became a state responsibility only in 1930.Schwartzberg (2008) In 1937 it was given the name ''

All India Radio All or ALL may refer to: Language * All, an indefinite pronoun in English * All, one of the English determiners * Allar language (ISO 639-3 code) * Allative case (abbreviated ALL) Music * All (band), an American punk rock band * ''All'' (All a ...

'' and since 1957 it has been called '' Akashvani''. Limited duration of television programming began in 1959, and complete broadcasting followed in 1965. The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting owned and maintained the audio-visual apparatus—including the television channel ''

Doordarshan Doordarshan (abbreviated as DD; Hindi: , ) is an Indian public service broadcaster founded by the Government of India, owned by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting and one of Prasar Bharati's two divisions. One of India's largest bro ...

''—in the country prior to the economic reforms of 1991.Thomas, 106 The Government of India played a significant role in using the audio-visual media for increasing mass education in India's rural swathes. Projected television screens provided engaging education in India's villages by the 1990s.In 1997, an autonomous body was established in the name of

Prasar Bharti Prasar Bharati (abbreviated as PB; Hindi: ''Praśar Bharati'', lit. Indian Broadcaster) is India's state-owned public broadcaster, headquartered in New Delhi. It is a statutory autonomous body set up by an Act of Parliament and comprises the ...

to take care of the public service broadcasting under the Prasar Bharti Act.

and

, which earlier were working as media units under the Ministry of I&B became constituents of the body. Following the economic reforms satellite television channels from around the world—including the

BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...

...

Press Council of Indian act 1978

Overview

Print

Dailies in India

Magazines in India

Broadcasting

Communications

Motion pictures

Digital and online media

List of notable digital-only publications

Defense news reporting in India

List

Ownership and funding

Funding ideology

Criticism

See also

Notes and References

Bibliography

Further reading