"Transforming Television in India" by Sevanti Ninan, in Media Studies Journal (Summer 1995), Columbia Univ., 2950 Broadway, New York, N.Y. 10027.

Until 1991, channel surfers in India lived desperate lives: there were only two chan- nels, both broadcast by the government-controlled network, Doordarshan. The censored news broadcasts ranged from dull to extremely dull. Today, reports Ninan, television critic for the Hindu in New Delhi, viewers can choose from more than a dozen channels (including CNN, the BBC, and MTV). And while Doordarshan news is still dull, there are now three independently pro- duced alternatives (one of them carried on Doordarshan itself).

The transformation, Ninan says, is the result of two major developments: the economic reforms begun by Prime Minister P. V. Narasimha Rao's government in 1991, which opened up India's nominally socialist economy to competition and the outside world; and the advent that same year of transnational satellite television broadcasting in Asia with the launching of Star TV, a private television network based in Hong Kong and largely owned by Rupert Murdoch. The fare was mostly recycled American pro-grams, Ninan says, "but to Indian television audiences . . . it was like manna from Hollywood, if not heaven."

Satellite television is costly and "still largely an urban middle-class phenomenon." Satellite TV reaches 10 million house- holds, compared with Doordarshan's 40 million. And educated Indians in New Delhi and other cities have long relied on the country's feisty newspapers rather than TV news, Ninan points out. But with the populace 45 percent illiterate, and mostly rural, uncensored television news may eventually make a profound difference in the Indian future.