Write a Essay about Print Media in India

Media of India consist of several different types of Indian communications media: television, radio, cinema, newspapers, magazines, and Internet-based Web sites. Many of the media are controlled by large, for-profit corporations which reap revenue from advertising, subscriptions, and sale of copyrighted material. India also has a strong music and film industry. India has more than 70,000 newspapers and over 690 satellite channels (more than 80 are news channels) and is the biggest newspaper market in the world over 100 million copies sold each day.

The first Indian media were established in the late 18th century with print media started in 1780. Auguste and Louis Lumière moving pictures were screened in Bombay during July 1895; and radio broadcasting began in 1927. Indian media-private media in particular have been “free and independent throughout most of their history. The period of emergency (1975-1977), declared by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, was the brief period when India’s media were faced with potential government retribution

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 2011-12 India was ranked 131 st out of 179 countries, which was a setback from the preceding year, while Freedom house, a U.S. based NGO rates India, in its latest report, as Partly Free.

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.

Main Articles :: Print media in India, List of newspapers in India and List of newspapers in India by circulation Further information Press Trust of India, United News of India and Category Indian magazines The first major newspaper in Ben India —The Bengal Gazette was started in 1780 under the British Raj by James Augustus Hickey. Other newspapers such as The India Gazette, The Calcutta Gazette, The Madras Courier (1785), The Bombay Herald (789) etc. 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 Sun), the first Hindi language newspaper published in India, started from Calcutta (now Kolkata), published every Tuesday by Pt. Jugal Kishore Shukla.

The Times of India was founded in 1838 as The Bombay Times and Journal of Commerce by Bennett, Coleman and Company, a colonial enterprise now owned by an Indian conglomerate. The Times Group publishes The Economic Times daunched in 1961), Navbharat Times (Hindi language), and the Maharashtra Times (Marathi language).

In the 1950s 214 daily newspapers were published in the country. Out of these, 44 were English language dailies while the rest were published in various regional and national languages. This number rose to 2,856 dailies in 1990 with 209 English dailies. The total number of newspapers published in the country reached 35,595 newspapers by 1993 (3,805 dailies)

The main regional newspapers of India include the Malayalam language Malayala Manorama (published from: Kerala, daily circulation: 673,000), the Hindi language Dainik Jagran (published from: Uttar Pradesh, daily circulation in 2006: 580,000), and the Anandabazar Patrika (published from: Kolkata, daily circulation in 2013 (ABC Jan Jun 2013) 11,93,000). The Times of India Group the Indian Express Group, the Hindustan Times Group the Hindu Group and the Anandabazar Patrika Group are the main print media houses of the country. The Anandabazar Patrika group runs the oldest surviving Hindi newspaper in India.

Newspaper sale in the country increased by 11.22% in 2007.[13] 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 2007making it the second largest market in the world for newspapers.