Mass media in India

The Indian media consists of several different types of communications of mass media: television, radio, cinema, newspapers, 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. today Many of the media are controlled by large, corporations, which reap revenue from advertising, subscriptions, and sale of copyrighted 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 compiles and publishes an annual ranking of countries based upon the organisation's assessment of its Press Freedom Index. 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 and their followers of Hindutva having greater exertion of control of the media. Freedom house, 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 liberal, which has been a point of friction recently due to an upsurge in popularity of Hindu nationalist 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'', founded in 1780, was the first Indian newspaper. Auguste and Louis Lumière moving pictures were screened in Bombay during July 1895, and radio broadcasting began in 1927.

Press Council of Indian act 1978

The Press Council of India 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, primarily due to political ties by the owner and the establishment. However, the new media 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 ''Hicky's Bengal Gazette'', started in 1780 under the British Raj by James Augustus Hicky. Other newspapers such as ''The India Gazette'', ''The Calcutta Gazette'', ''The Madras Courier'' (1785), and '' The Bombay Herald'' (1789) soon followed. These newspapers carried news of the areas under the British rule. The ''Bombay Samachar'', founded in 1822 and printed in Gujarati is the oldest newspaper in Asia still in print. On 30 May 1826 '' Udant Martand'' (The Rising Sun), the first Hindi-language newspaper published in India, started from Calcutta (now Kolkata), 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 and the Morse code, giving the English press an advantage in speed. The speed of typesetting was also much slower in Indian languages because of the Diacritics. 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 dailies that have a total circulation of about 80 million copies. English, the second language 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 Bhaskar'', ''Amar Ujala'', '' Devbhumi Mirror'', ''Navbharat Times'', ''Hindustan Dainik'', ''Prabhat Khabar'', ''Rajasthan Patrika'', and '' Dainik Aaj''.

In terms of readership, ''Dainik Jagran'' is the most popular Hindi daily with a total readership (TR) of 70,377,000, according to IRS Q1 2019. ''Dainik Bhaskar'' is the second most popular with a total readership of 51,405,000. ''Amar Ujala'' with a TR of 47,645,000, ''Rajasthan Patrika'' with a TR of 18,036,000 and ''Prabhat Khabar'' 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'', 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. ''The Hindustan Times'' was founded in 1924 during the Indian Independence Movement ('Hindustan' being the historical name of India), it is published by HT Media Ltd. ''The Hindu'' was founded in 1878 by a group known as the Triplicane Six consisting of four law students and two teachers in Madras (now Chennai), it is now owned by The Hindu Group.

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 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 ''Lokmat'', the Gujarati Language ''Gujarat Samachar'', the Malayalam language ''Malayala Manorama'', the Tamil language ''Daily Thanthi'', the Telugu language ''Eenadu ''Vijaya Karnataka'' and the Bengali language ''Anandabazar Patrika''.

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. 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

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Magazines in India

*Top 10 Hindi magazines

:''Ref: Indian Readership Survey Q1 201

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*Top 10 English magazines

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*Top 10 regional magazines

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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'' 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''—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 to take care of the public service broadcasting under the Prasar Bharti Act. All India Radio and Doordarshan, 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
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