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Identity and Consumerism on Television in India Divya C. McMillin Assistant Professor University of Washington, Tacoma GWP 414 1900 Commerce Street Tacoma WA 98402-3100 [O]: (253) 692-5651 [log in to unmask] Paper submitted to the Qualitative Division of the 1999 Annual Convention of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, New Orleans, LA, August 4-7. Identity and Consumerism on Television in India This paper uses a cultural studies approach to examine the political economy of state-owned and private television networks in India. The purpose is to understand the strategies employed by these networks to propagate a certain identity and to compete with each other for the largest share of audience-consumers. Interviews with respondents from the networks revealed that constructions of audience and network identity varied remarkably among networks. This indicates that in the long term, the availability of region and language-specific programming could contribute to the construction of decentralized, subnational viewing communities each with their own definitions of community identity. Identity and Consumerism on Television in India On August 15, 1997, India celebrated 50 years of Independence from British rule. To mark the historic moment at the symbolic August 14 midnight parliamentary session,[1] film playback singer Lata Mangeshkar was scheduled to uncork a bottle of Cadbury Schweppes' Freedom Salvo, a special limited version of Canada Dry, after singing the nationalistic song, "Saare Jahan Se Achcha" (India You Are Most Beautiful). The Salvo symbolized the freedom to choose the champagne of soft drinks, Cadbury Schweppes managers said. However, parliamentarians said the Salvo symbolized crass consumerism, and desecrated the freedom moment. In the end, the parliamentarians won, and Mangeshkar sang minus the Freedom Salvo. The sanctity of the freedom struggle was restored, and the parliamentarians felt they had protected the nation's inner, spiritual sphere from the crude materialism of the western Other ("Midnight session not for MNC ads," 1997). The struggle over boundaries is an ancient task of nation building. With the implementation of the 1991 economic liberalization policy in India's television industry, the task has assumed prime importance with multinationals reconfiguring the boundaries of national taste and character. Cadbury Schweppes' Freedom Salvo is symbolic of the new spaces of identity provided by the multinationals where Indian consumers, empowered by the availability of choice in the liberalized market, can articulate their preferences and identities. This reordering of national space and popular imagination is met with resistance by government officials and national elites who find their task of boundary maintenance complicated by the influx of competing definitions of state, citizen, and national identity. This paper uses a cultural studies approach to examine the political economy of television networks in India. The analysis enters the discussion on television and national identity in India at the historic moment of the nation's 50th year of independence. Scholarship on national identity focuses on national boundaries and on the reconfigurations of national and supranational spaces by transnational media (Morley and Robins 1995; Mattelart 1994; Featherstone 1995). Through participant observation and interviews at various levels of television networks in Bangalore, India, this paper shifts the argument about nationalism and national identity from the global arena to the very local, where transnational networks such as Star TV and Zee TV, the newly-autonomous national network Doordarshan, and private regional networks such as Sun TV, Udaya TV, and AsiaNet in India, compete through localized and region-specific images, for the local consumer. The purpose of this study is to understand the strategies employed by the transnational, national, and regional networks in India, to propagate a certain identity and to compete with each other for the largest share of audience-consumers. The following research questions are posed: what strategies do state-owned national and private transnational and regional television networks in India use to compete with one another? What identity do these networks seek for themselves (as evident in the goals and objectives they aspire to)? How do they define their audience community (in terms of their general perceptions and of the information obtained through audience research)? These questions are extremely pertinent to an understanding of the impact of private television networks, each with their own narratives of community and consumerism, on the national identity of their audiences. The study is situated in Bangalore, India. Bangalore is poised to become a "global city," not just because of its cosmopolitan population of 5 million, but for its technologically advanced, fast-paced society as well. It is called the "Silicon Valley of India," due to the location of such multinational corporations as Motorola, Texas Instruments, Hewlett Packard, and IBM (Aikat & Singhal, 1993). Sassen (1996) identifies the city as a crucial space for the analysis of "concrete, localized processes through which globalization exists," and says that "the denationalizing of urban space and the formation of new claims centered in transnational actors and involving contestation, raise the question - whose city is it?" (p. 206). This is indeed an important question for Bangalore, which is witnessing not only the rise of multinational corporations because of the inexpensive and skilled labor available, but also the cris-crossing of global, national, and regional television programming reaching most of its residents. Culture, Power, and National Identity in India The political economy approach offers a framework for the analysis of the relationship among media, culture, and power in India. This approach regards media industries as sites for the intersection of culture and power such that "culture" as it is defined by those in power, is disseminated to the members of society. The political economy approach is, in essence, a revision of the structuralist view of ideology. Hall (1994) discusses the structuralist approach which focuses on signification. This approach views meaning not as a practice, but a social production through language and symbolization. A dominant meaning is produced through the regular marginalizing and de-legitimizing of alternative constructions and the regular legitimizing of dominant meaning. Structures of power are intimately tied to who defines cultural meanings, who selects the meanings that are dominant, and who sustains these meanings in their dominant positions. The main criticism of the structuralist paradigm is that it sometimes takes abstraction to the extreme and thus locks itself into a theoreticism vs. empiricism debate with the culturalist paradigm of cultural studies. However while culturalism looks at particularities of practices, structuralism recognizes the complexity of the unity of a structure. It differs from culturalism in that it regards unity as constructed through differences rather than through similarity of practices. Cultural studies scholarship has increasingly focused on political economy analyses of transnational media networks to address such crucial issues as the role of the state in controlling popular imagination (Morley and Robins, 1995; Featherstone, 1995), the power of the citizen in global and local narratives of consumerism (Mankekar, 1993; Rajagopal, 1996; McMillin, 1997), and the emergence of local structures of power as a reaction to the diminishing role of the state in the context of globalization (Curtin, 1997; Shields and Muppidi, 1996). In the context of international communication, political economy analyses of media networks are often deterministic in that they adopt a simplistic and uncritical revision of dependency theory (A. Mattelart, 1994; Huntington, 1996) where the United States, primarily, is touted as an ideological giant imposing consumerist narratives on passive Third World audiences.[2] Curtin (1997) provides a more critical perspective on transnational media flows. He points to two issues worthy of note. First, the United States does maintain its dominant position in global media flows; and second, these media flows are interpreted as representative of the powerful position of the United States in the global television arena. The important question then is, who interprets these media flows as representative of the power of the center? In India, the interpretations of global media flows by government officials and national elites receive extensive coverage in the national media. Popular response to television is largely ignored because, operating again from the powerful effects paradigm, national elites construct a consensual image of television audiences and summarize that they are passive, uncritical consumers of ideologies of nation, gender, and consumerism, as constructed by foreign, primarily American, television programs. However, efforts to contain the nation through a centralized agency such as state-owned television, are never quite accomplished. As Curtin (1997) comments: In essence, the challenge confronting the modern state is to contain diversity by promoting a broadly popular narrative of progress -- one that promoted a sense of collective movement forward through secular, chronological time. The tensions among and between groups must be submerged in favor of a shared destiny. Yet such attempts at incorporation are never fully successful. Some groups not only resist assimilation, they defiantly identify themselves as separate nations in search of their own territory and government structure (p. 252-253). Shields and Muppidi (1996) examine the rise of subnational groups who have exploited the current liberalized economic climate in India and have established private, regional television networks to garner niche audiences in various urban areas of the country through localized, language-specific programming. These authors write that the availability of alternate programming from private cable and satellite channels in addition to that of Doordarshan may undermine the exclusionary national integration project undertaken by Doordarshan according to the whims of particular political parties in power. They note: In the old environment, the government had more or less total control over what was televised in the national space....In India's new 'audiovisual space,' these strategies may be undercut. The foreign satellites are offering a changed (and varying) menu of images and prescriptions from which middle class viewers may draw on in constructing their identity. These images and prescriptions, whether carried by English or Hindi channels, may sit uncomfortably with Hindu fundamentalist notions, for example....Further, the proliferation of satellite channels, particularly regional-language channels, may lead to different notions of 'nations' and 'national identity' circulating through segments of the middle class (p. 19). Shields and Muppidi rightly point to possible contestations of Doordarshan's centralist constructions of Hindu nation by private cable and satellite channels and to differing definitions of nation and national identity by the middle class as a consequence. In this paper, I advance theory on television and national identity through actual interviews with respondents at the transnational, national, and regional networks[3] in Bangalore, at a critical juncture in Indian television history. While earlier analyses have focused on pre-liberalized television and audiences (Krishnan and Dighe, 1990; Rajagopal, 1996; Mitra, 1993; Mankekar 1993), or on policy analyses within the liberalized climate (Shields and Muppidi, 1996), this paper involves fieldwork at the various levels of television networks and provides a view into the debate on nationalism, consumerism, and identity in India during the moment of the nation's 50th year of independence -- a time of introspection on the impact of British colonialism on the national ethos, and a time of speculation on the impact of competing hegemonies through television and marketing networks, on the national identity of audience-consumers. The analysis focuses on the strategies of state-owned and private transnational and regional networks to compete with one another; the identity these networks seek for themselves (as evident in the goals and objectives they aspire to); and their definitions of audience identity. To adequately address competing definitions of identity, this analysis includes interviews at the transnational networks Star TV and Zee TV, the newly autonomous, but still state-defined Bangalore Doordarshan network, and the private, regional, Bangalore-based Udaya TV network. The discussion of definitions of network and audience identity is crucial to our understanding of the impact of these networks, each with their own narratives of community and consumerism, on the national identity of audiences in India. How the Study was Conducted Fieldwork for this study was conducted in Bangalore in three phases. Finnegan (1992) writes that background preparation for fieldwork takes three major forms: theoretical, where the researcher has to be familiar with contending viewpoints regarding the issues to be studied; ethnographic, where the researcher has to examine the specific historical and cultural context of the area by studying unpublished archived documents, published examples, audio and video recordings, school textbooks and syllabi, manuscripts of other researchers and so on; and, linguistic, where the researcher has to have a certain degree of linguistic competence to maximize competency in the field. Theoretical and ethnographic research began in winter 1995 when I visited Bangalore and collected literature on the privatization of the communication industry in the country (See Appendix A for questions that guided archival research). A second phase of research was conducted in the summer of 1996 and included extensive textual analysis of programs from the transnational (Star TV and Zee TV), national (Doordarshan 1 and Doordarshan 2) and private regional (Sun TV, Udaya TV, and AsiaNet) networks to explore their differences and similarities, and the techniques of program production used to establish a station identity and define a viewing community. Policy and program analyses brought me up to date on the historical, political, and cultural context of the television environment in India, helped develop a research design, and stimulated questions for the analysis of the political economy of television in India, which is undertaken in this study. Linguistic competency was not an issue in this study since I am a native speaker of Kannada, the regional language of Bangalore. Most interviews, however, were conducted in English. The third phase of this study was conducted in the summer or 1997 in Bangalore and consisted of archival research, participant observation, and in-depth interviews at the regional stations of the state-owned national network Doordarshan, the private regional network Udaya TV, the local marketing and sales offices of the transnational networks, Star TV and Zee TV; and numerous cable operators and franchisees in the city (See Appendix B for list of respondents interviewed). Interviews were similar in format among interviewees. I was prepared with a short statement of purpose and a letter authenticating my research status and university affiliation. The research purpose was stated and permission to conduct the interview was obtained at the beginning of each interview. The statement of purpose was provided to each interviewee. Questions were fairly consistent across interviews and covered such areas as the interviewee's job description, the nature of his or her organization, and finally, the interviewees perspective on the television environment in India, and on the audience in Bangalore (See Appendix C for questions that guided interviews). For all interviews, permission to use the tape recorder was requested. In instances where the interviewee felt uncomfortable with the tape recorder, I respectfully agreed not to use it. Instead, permission was requested to take notes to which these respondents consented. After each interview, each tape was played back and notes were reviewed to make sure interviewee comments could be heard clearly. All tapes were transcribed before analysis. The Money Game The interviews revealed that despite intense competition for urban audiences among private television networks, Doordarshan still enjoys monopoly status as an economy of scale. It now has three national channels, two special interest channels, nine regional channels, and an international channel. It reaches 86 percent of the population through a network of 750 terrestrial transmitters, and earns USD 12.3 million annually. Doordarshan is funded partly by the government (60 percent), and partly through commercial sponsorship (40 percent). Of total ad revenue, the northern regional Doordarshan kendras (stations) in Delhi, Lucknow, and Jalandhar network 8 percent of ad revenue. Commercial rates depend on the type of program and the time in which it is telecast. Program type and time is categorized into Super A (very popular), A Special (film-based programs or Hindi serials), Special (Hindi serials), Time A (new programs or popular repeats). Sixty-second spot rates for Doordarshan-produced serials are Rs. 70,000 (USD 1,750),[4] Rs. 60,000 (USD 1500), Rs. 25,000 (USD 625), and Rs. 15,000 (USD 375) for these program types on the national network, respectively. Rates are slightly higher for programs on the metro channels. Advertisers on Doordarshan are those of soaps, toothpastes, television sets, detergents, textiles, shampoos, corporate services (banking, legal, etc.), two-wheelers, detergent cakes, and cosmetic oils (Doordarshan, 1996). Udaya TV, Star TV, and Zee TV depend solely on advertising revenue. Figures for advertising spots on Udaya TV were inaccessible. For Star TV and Zee TV, advertising rates were based, as in Doordarshan, on program type and time. For example, 30 second spots on Star TV costs around Rs. 120,000 (USD 3,000).[5] Star TV's five channels makes advertising on this network more profitable because the Star TV Plan includes nine spots on DD1, 19 spots on DD2, five spots on Zee TV, 60 spots on Star TV Plus, and 50 spots on Star TV Movies for a total of 143 spots. Without the Star TV Plan, an advertiser would obtain only 13 spots on DD1, 24 on DD2, and seven on Zee TV for a total of 44 spots. Rates for these spots fall between Rs. 100,000 (USD 2,500) to Rs. 90,000 (USD 2,250) per 10 second spot. Zee TV similarly divides its ad rates according to program type and time. Zee TV offers ten second spots during Special shows on DD1 and DD2 for around Rs. 65,000 - Rs. 135,000 (USD 1,625 - 3,375) and during Super A shows for anywhere between Rs. 1,05,000 - Rs. 1,10,000 (USD 2,750 - USD 2,625). Programs on the Zee TV channel cost less at Rs. 60,000 (USD 1500) and Rs. 75,000 (USD 1,875) for 10 second spots. The sole dependence on advertising revenue by the private television networks obviously drive their need for audience ratings. This contributed to differing definitions of audience and network identity. In brief, personnel at Bangalore Doordarshan specified that the network's programs were geared toward the rural audience, while those at Star TV, Zee TV, and to a certain extent Udaya TV, said their programs were designed for the urban consumer. As did those at Bangalore Doordarshan, personnel at Udaya TV stressed social objectives of education and information, while those at Star TV and Zee TV talked candidly about their focus on consumerism. While interviewees at Bangalore Doordarshan did not feel competition from the private cable and satellite channels was threatening in the near future, those at Star TV, Zee TV, and Udaya TV were very conscious of competition from other networks and discussed various strategies to combat this. Again, views about nation, audience, competition, and station objectives differed among respondents in different positions within the network's hierarchy. Social Vision, Commercial Reality Ever since the first telecast in 1959, Doordarshan, the national television network, was promoted as a tool for education and development. Development rhetoric in the early 1960s was strong in UN and UNESCO conferences and the role of television for rural development was studied in depth in the country.[6] Employees high up in Doordarshan's hierarchy echoed this rhetoric. The station director and the executive producer promoted the network as a bastion of national culture and development and said the social and cultural role of Doordarshan as a national network was conveyed through its programming. Doordarshan provides a three-tiered service: national, regional, and local. The network's annual report states: In the national programmes the focus is on the national culture and the programmes include news, current affairs, science, cultural magazines, serials, music, dance, drama, and feature films. The regional programmes carried on all the transmitters in the concerned state also deal with similar programmes at the state level, but in the language and idiom of that particular region. The local programmes are area specific and cover local issues featuring local people (Doordarshan 1996, p. 1). The director and executive producer reflected on the milestones in Doordarshan's history and noted that despite the aggressive change to commercial programming with the advent of color television in 1982 and the emergence of the Indian soap opera soon after,[7] Doordarshan had not lost sight of its developmental function. Also, Doordarshan's role as a protector of national culture was not in anyway curbed with the presence of private satellite networks,[8] they said. These networks were too commercial and vulgar and although initially successful, would not be accepted by the average Indian because of their foreign actors, contexts, and themes antithetical to Indian culture. Although private television networks were far from threatening to Doordarshan, the director said the network had taken efficient measures to compete with the private networks. He explained that after economic liberalization, competition from the 80 - 100 private satellite channels in the country demanded that the network develop more commercial programming to retain viewership. Thus the metro DD2 channel was introduced and regional channels were launched in each state -- all of which carried primarily entertainment-oriented channels. From a two-hour window on the national channel, regional programming jumped to around 13 hours on each of the 16 regional channels. Reflecting on these changes, he said, "These are the ways India can not only face the competition, (but) meet the requirement of the audience to the maximum extent." The conflation of Doordarshan with India is interpreted here to be a conscious articulation of the bond between the nation and national television. This reflects the clearly defined role of Doordarshan as keeper of the nation as articulated by elites in its hierarchy. The director said the concerns of the corporate world did not dictate program policies. Thus, educational shows were telecast in the late afternoon when children were home from school, and agricultural programs were telecast around 7:00 p.m. when farmers were back from the fields. He said: I have a social commitment, and I have to be responsible for the needs of the people also. So my designing of the program has nothing to do with their (other television networks) designing. Some put six films a day. I'm not in a rat race. (If) I do put a film, I put (it) at a convenient time, for example, 9:30 at night. Daily I put a film where people after food they sit like in a second (movie) show and watch very quietly. And... I will (also) put a film at 12:30 (p.m.). This time is when all ladies, after their household work, they will quietly sit and watch....You have to find the life, the habit, the lifestyle and habits (of the audience), and accordingly schedule (the programs). The director said although films were popular with audiences, the social needs of the audience assumed higher priority for the network than their entertainment needs. His description of the audience -- whether farmers or women -- as those who sit 'quietly' and watch Doordarshan programs, implies an understanding of the viewer as quiet, passive, and obedient. This allowed him to perpetuate the patriarchal function of the network as disseminator of educative programs for the well-being of the nation-family. While employees high up in the station's hierarchy identified the network as a keeper of national identity and culture and positioned private networks as the degenerate and commercial Other as a typical nation building strategy (Morley and Robins, 1995; Price, 1995; Featherstone 1995), the national objectives of Doordarshan shifted to a more local level for employees lower in this station's hierarchy. Both the program executive and the news executive said Doordarshan had shifted its social objectives to consumerist ones through its increased menu of films and popular film-based programs. The program executive said that contrary to the innovations undertaken by the network, she strived to project the social goals of the network in her selection and production of local-specific programs. The identity of Bangalore Doordarshan, she said, was integrally tied to place. The location and characters in plays and in cultural shows such as dance and music programs were selected carefully to convey a sense of local place and context. She said: In our programs -- in the program which we produce in-house, we try to keep a certain representation for all the regions in Karnataka.... If it's a dance program, we audition our own (local) artists; if it's a drama program, we audition our own (local) artists. But when we audition them and when we call them for a program, we make sure that we are giving enough representation to all the regions in Karnataka. Now when it comes to locations, we may not always be able to do that. In the sense it is very difficult to go to Dharwad (on the outskirts of Karnataka) and do a production over there. The attempt is definitely there -- to take out our OB van, to place it at the north of Karnataka at one stage, to go along the coast at some other stage and produce programs representing people from that area, to go down to the south of Karnataka, Mysore, and to invite them into our studios. Programs from the remote stations of Karnataka such as Dharwad and Hubli take priority over those in Bangalore because such areas, famous for their historical sites, are rarely represented and any opportunity to receive coverage is exploited. Through location, accent, dress, dance, and drama style, programs produced for Bangalore Doordarshan are carefully crafted to convey a sense of place and boundary. This program executive said production quality was a prime factor in viewer's decisions. The poor production quality of development programs and the increase in films and film-based programs she said, resulted in the loss of audiences for development programs and a consequential shift by Doordarshan away from the production of such programs. The shift toward audience ratings rather than audience education and information was felt in the news department as well. A news executive and news correspondent who reported for the English, Hindi, and Kannada news said that while earlier the news was essentially the voice of the government for the propagation of government policies, the news now included crime reporting (as did Udaya TV) -- a topic never covered before. Thus crime coverage was included because of similar coverage in Udaya TV news. Although she considered this an unhealthy trend, the news executive said competition from Udaya TV news and news on other private regional channels was a positive influence on Doordarshan news coverage: The criteria for news before these private channels came up was that (it should be) totally government oriented. Totally government oriented....We have always tried to project the government's point of view. But with the private channels coming up, I think we are trying to look into it both ways. Which is a very healthy this thing. We are given an opportunity to do reporting the way we should be doing it. Otherwise it was quite frustrating you know, when we had to take the government's point of view. But now with the new crop of editors that we have in Delhi also, the new generation -- I don't know if it is the generation or the government's stand point that's changing, but we are trying to open up a lot. The format of the news served to convey a sense of national identity. The news executive explained that the structure of news itself directed attention to the importance of the national over regional (state-wide news), or local (city-specific news). She said: We take national first, then regional, then absolutely local. That is, in our local news -- in our Kannada news that we produce. But the national news is basically national-oriented. There are very few stories which are region based unless it is something which is very unique and could be emulated by the rest of the country. Development news was incorporated in the regional segment, and, unless major international or local events took precedence, this format was adhered to. The critical rural viewer Audience research is an important department in the Doordarshan network. Audience research focuses on two primary areas: viewer profile and program popularity. Doordarshan's Audience Research Team (DART) has panels in 33 cities and covers 20 cities across the country each week to rate DD1 programs in all these cities, and DD2 programs in nine select ones. Television rating points (TRP) are assessed by the Indian Market Research Bureau (IMRB) which conducts audience research in such cities as Bombay, Delhi, Madras, Calcutta, Bangalore, Thiruvananthapuram, Ahmedabad and Kanpur. IMRB statistics are sought by various satellite channels as well. The audience research officer said the network randomly polled around 600 audience members every week: 300 from Bangalore city, 200 from Tiptur, and 200 from Mysore. Viewer choices were obtained through television diaries, which are distributed at the beginning and collected at the end of each week. Samples were weighted for fair representations in gender, age, and occupational categories. The television diaries provided statistical information on the channels and programs watched. Viewers logged in the time and type of programs watched on a given day. The audience research officer said the information from these diaries was supplemented by occasional field interviews in urban and rural areas. Respondents at this station identified the rural resident as the target consumer. The program executive said phone-in interactive programs and development programs on women's health and on general medical and legal problems were very popular with rural audiences. The network received a flood of viewer mail soon after such programs were telecast. She acknowledged the tremendous shift to films and entertainment as a marketing strategy to garner more commercial sponsorship, yet perceived her audience as the rural individual who needed to be empowered by progressive and development narratives. The news executive also stressed the rural resident as the target viewer. She said that in general, audiences were critical news-watchers: From what I have noticed, they are a very aware lot and you can't take them for granted and say they don't watch Doordarshan anymore. But I have noticed that people say, on that particular day, Star carried the news this way, and you carried it this way. So that means they have been switching channels to see how the story is being treated, not only by us, but by Star TV, and different news bulletins that come during the day. And that's a very fascinating thing because I thought it was only we who did it -- switching channels -- seeing how they have treated this story. She said audiences often questioned the network on its pro-government stand. The critical awareness extended to rural audiences as well: No other (news) bulletin reaches there. We have the farmers who come in from their work, and the first thing they do is switch on their TV's and at 7 o'clock they watch the news. We have had responses from them, saying why wasn't this taken for the news, from our region. What if something has happened in Dharwad. (For example) there is a writer who has been honored. If he has not been honored or if he has not been recognized by us, we receive phone calls from the villages, saying why haven't you taken this. So I -- we know our rural audience is a very aware audience, so we just cannot take them for granted. We try to -- after taking the national news, we go in for regional news. (We focus on) what has happened in Bangalore, what has happened in Mangalore. For that we have different teams that go out everyday. Dharwad, Mysore, Mangalore -- all these places. And Gulbarga, we have another center which looks after the northern part of Karnataka. So they go out there and they feed news to us. So these are the regions. It may be a very small function but we try to lay stress on that also because it is the audience we are catering to. The construction of the target audience as the rural community was interesting because textual analyses of programs -- be they development or entertainment-oriented -- on Doordarshan reveal a focus on the urban middle class (Krishnan & Dighe, 1989; Mankekar, 1993). As the program and news executives indicated, however, the social objectives of the network and its focus on the rural community was more an ideological strategy than reality. Udaya TV: An Alternative Space for Kannadigas Udaya TV was started in June 1994, primarily to provide an alternative Kannada language channel in Karnataka.[9] The channel uplinks to the Intelsat satellite from Singapore. The Bangalore office is responsible for generating software and sending this via videotape to Singapore to be uplinked for transmission. The vice president of programming of Udaya TV said that various private channels in the country, such as the Hindi-language Zee TV and the Tamil-language Sun TV, were popular because they provided language and region-specific dramas, sitcoms and game shows. The Kannadiga, however, lacked a Kannada channel and was limited to the standard fare offered by the government-owned Doordarshan. Thus, to answer the need of the 'common man,' he said, Udaya TV was launched. He felt he had his finger on the pulse of the common man because of his status as a Kannada actor who was in the business of catering to the entertainment needs of Kannadigas. Respondents at this station said the primary goal of the network was entertainment. However, the vice president and the general manager stressed that the network projected a social focus as well, and broadcast shows that addressed legal, medical, and marital problems of its audiences. The slogan of the network was "manovasarondige, manoranjanondige, manovikasondige," which means 'the entertainment and development of the mind.'[10] The vice-president said Udaya TV allowed Kannada-speaking people all over India -- whether in Calcutta, Nasik, or Bombay, to tune in to programs in their native language and watch Karnataka-specific locations and actors talk about the culture and heritage of the state. The identity and objectives of the network was expressed in the following exchange: General manager (GM): if I were a Kannadiga I would like to watch something which is happening in my mother tongue. I have a different kind of a feeling for it. But the alternative (before private television ) was that if I have to watch something in Kannada, I have to go to Doordarshan. Today the situation has changed; if you want something nice and you still feel you want to watch it in Kannada, you can watch it on Udaya TV. I think that's where we, we pulled the Kannadiga population which was watching other channels to watch our channel. You know, that's where we've made the difference....So I think that's where we've made the difference. A Kannadiga who was watching other channels, and watching Doordarshan, we brought... Vice-president: we have brought them back to our language. GM: We have brought them back to watch the movie in our own mother tongue (Emphases in original). Both vice president and general manager stressed the importance of Udaya TV in providing a space for Kannadigas all over India to connect through language and context with their native state and with fellow Kannadigas. Although they regarded Udaya TV as a cultural space for Kannadigas, they resisted any political implications and said the primary objective of the channel was entertainment. They said although audiences might choose Udaya TV for its language and local identity, the channel would not contribute to anti-national or pro-regional sentiments. It would only contribute to benign feelings of pride in the region as part of pride in the larger nation. The general manager said: I think TV plays an important role in our lives, (but), I still feel there are other major factors which can influence you in a direction. A TV program is light-hearted most of the time. And we are not propagating anything of that nature (regional identity) on the channel at all. (We don't say) don't watch this or don't watch that, only watch this -- language as an aspect is handled in our programs. But it is always the positive aspects of the language. (We say) learn more of Kannada, or (promote) a kind of a program which (discusses) the language. We never try to push Kannada, I don't think that's the right attitude for any channel to do it also. Kannada as a language (we say), look at it, what are the various factors which have made this language last all this while (Emphases in original). The respondents at Udaya TV were keenly aware of the competition from other private channels. Doordarshan was not considered a competitor because of its government ownership, reach, terrestrial transmission, and control over the infrastructure of the private channels. Yet the structure and character of Udaya TV was articulated in terms of how it differed from Bangalore Doordarshan. The vice president and general manager said although a viewer could receive Doordarshan signals just through an antenna, Udaya TV programming required cable networking to be received on home television sets. However, the advantage they had over Doordarshan was that Udaya TV lacked the bureaucratic structure of Doordarshan. Udaya TV was run like a small family concern with no red tape or underhandedness. Also, they felt they had a better assessment of audience needs and limited their telecast of holy songs, dance programs, and other cultural programs in favor of movies, talk shows, and game shows, to cater to audiences' hunger for entertainment. The respondents monitored the programming schedules of other channels and brainstormed for about four to five hours every Saturday afternoon for innovative programming ideas. Besides Doordarshan, Udaya TV faced stiff competition from its parent company, Sun TV itself. The respondents said Bangalore had a vast Tamilian population and the well-produced programs were watched by Tamilians and Kannadigas alike (many people were multilingual). Thus many programs on Sun TV were imitated to fit the Karnataka context. However, these shows flopped miserably because Bangalore's cosmopolitan population made it difficult to target the right cross-section of viewers. Also, they said, the Kannadiga population was not ready for the satirization of hierarchies of gender, age, and class as were those in Tamil Nadu. The Urban Kannadiga Respondents at Udaya TV said the network did not have a formal audience research unit, but obtained feedback from viewers through mail or phone-in requests (particularly for phone-in interactive shows). The vice president of programming said that as a retired Kannada film actor he had a good idea of what the average Kannadiga was looking for by way of entertainment. However, both vice president and general manager said the network had not yet been able to draw up an adequate strategy to increase the ratings for Udaya TV programs. The primary problem, they said, was language. Although they said earlier that the Kannada language was the strength of the network and differentiated it from other networks, the version of Kannada used on the network was that which was spoken in the Bangalore urban district. In the remote regions of Karnataka such as Bijapur, Mangalore, and Dharwad, dialects of Kannada and other languages such as Marathi and Tulu, were more common. Also, Bangalore was a cosmopolitan city consisting of people from all over India, speaking a variety of languages. Another reason for Udaya TV's slow climb, the respondents said, was the conservatism of Kannada audiences. For example, several game and variety shows lifted from Sun TV's programming and adapted to the Karnataka context proved to be flops. The general manager commented:We took a program like Tic Tic Tic (a game show) and did it here -- a flamboyant show, we felt. I think when we looked at it we thought it was a fantastic show. He (the moderator) was absolutely bold and he had a lot of life when he did that program. But it bombed very badly with the audience. Karnataka still cannot take any harsh issue as such. Tamil Nadu can take it. But I still think the people of Karnataka are very sober. They don't like anything blatantly said. But if you look at the other channels, or lets take any other Hindi private channel, they go all out. In fact they have a program called "Flop Hero and Flop Heroine of the Week." I don't think that will be accepted here in Bangalore. Issues like this took us sometime to really understand this (the nature of the audience) better. Even a hit show, "Adarsha Dampathigalu," a version of the "Newly-wed Game,"[11] was designed so that, between rounds of questions to participating couples, elderly male members in the audience and officials from the state government were requested to come on stage and talk about the benefits of 'open communication' between husband and wife. The vice president, also the moderator of that show, said it was difficult to get couples to talk openly about their marital quirks, and those who were willing, decided against it because they imagined the audience to consist of parents, grandparents, and traditionalists of Kannadiga society. Game questions were non-controversial and dealt with the general knowledge of the participants, their interest in food, clothes, and so on, rather than the intimate details of their relationship. However, audience mail showed that viewers had appropriated the show to assess the quality of their own marital relationships and many reported they began learning about their partner's likes and dislikes so they would not fall short and lose points as did some of the couples on television. Both vice president and general manager said Udaya TV followed a policy of decency and morality and did not telecast shows unsuitable for family viewers as a whole. Star TV and Zee TV: Links Between Corporations and Consumers Personnel at the Star TV and Zee TV networks, contrary to those in Bangalore Doordarshan and Udaya TV, saw their respective networks as links between corporations and consumers. Star TV's annual report, Vision Into Reality (1996) states: India is a model for Star TV's regional businesses. Virtually all decisions are made and executed from our Mumbai and Delhi offices. Relying extensively on local management, technical, sales, creative and performing talent, all but five of our 200 staff are Indian nationals. Re-enforcing that policy, all of our creative endeavors are spearheaded by our Indian employees, whether in conjunction with associated or independent producers or with our partner, Zee TV. This framework enables Star to be sensitive to local traditions and culture. And most importantly, it permits us to respond to India's demands in India (p. 16). The vice president of sales at the Bangalore Star TV office described the network as a niche English network. The telecast of US programs such as "Baywatch," "X Files," "Chicago Hope," and "NYPD Blue" gave it an American character. The Star TV head office in Hong Kong was staffed by several professionals from the Fox network in the United States and hence several ideas and concepts in programming from Fox were imported to Star TV, he said. Star TV catered to specialized audiences, and each of its channels, Star Plus, Star Movies, Channel [V], Star Sports (now merged with ESPN) and BBC, targeted a specific audience segment. Although ratings for each channel sometimes fell into single digits, cumulatively, they often reached as high as 29 percent for Star TV and 35 percent for Zee TV. The vice president of sales described Star Plus as a Hindi and English current affairs channel. He said it aggressively promoted the dubbing of such programs as "Baywatch" and "Bold and the Beautiful." Its increased focus on current affairs through such programs as "Newstrack" and "Awaz," its introduction of the "Hindi Comedy Hour," and of topical talk shows such as the "Priya Tendulkar Show" and "Maneka's Ark" resulted in the doubling and tripling of its ratings in 1996. The vice president of sales also said Star TV had witnessed a transition in the urban viewer. When the network first carried MTV, youth in various cities emulated the clothing and jargon of characters in the music videos and of the VJs themselves. He said this gradually gave way to: a surge of Hindi pop culture which had a different language, different style, different lingo, different dress...MTV provided the platform for a western orientation, but Channel [V] took over when MTV moved (out). It had its own brand of identity, which they (urban youth) related to. And for the first time in our country people started laughing at (them)selves...(it was) a spoof on us. (This) explains the popularity of Channel [V] because it adapted itself to the Indian conditions without actually missing out on the funkiness of the western orientation. Star TV's channels, particularly Channel [V], he said, had cashed in on the global/local hybridity and turned it into a new popular genre of programming. It took the values and cultural icons of both the United States and India and presented them in light-hearted combinations with one another. Shashanka Ghosh, creative director of Channel [V] said: When we launched Channel [V] in India we had to make sure we did not end up with a Jekyll and Hyde channel alternating between programming for international music and programming for Indian music. The difficulty lay in blending the two...the irreverent, take-it-as-it-comes spirit and youth humor of Channel [V] with the crucial Indian ethos. The magical thing is that we have actually managed a style and kind of fusion that India has never seen before and whose popularity can only be explained by the scale of copies that can be seen on other channels (cited in "Vision Into Reality," 1996, p. 17). The senior sales executive of Channel [V]'s Bangalore office said the channel was in a constant battle for advertising with other private channels because of its niche focus. A MODE survey conducted in April-June 1996 on 14-30 year-olds in cable and satellite homes in Delhi, Calcutta, Bombay and Bangalore showed that Channel [V] was described by the respondents as sexy and stylish (82 percent), international (76 percent), high quality (60 percent), lively (57 percent), entertaining (42 percent) and friendly (38 percent). Channel [V]'s closest rival is the Hindi pop music channel ATN and not MTV which trails behind both of them (Channel [V]: The Chosen One! 1997). As the first foreign music Indianized channel, the senior sales executive said Channel [V] attempted to:reflect the tastes of urban and progressive youth. Two years ago you were brought up to be timid -- scared. Only affluent kids were able to be bold. Suddenly there's life beyond home, tuition. Pubs started springing up. Bon Jovi, Aerosmith -- (we) didn't have access to these singers. (Now they) teach you to be funky, to be hep, to have an attitude, how to dress. VJs achieve celebrity status and receive immense fan mail...It is not declasse to say you are watching Hindi pop. Now in a disco, people are dancing to Indian music. Channel [V] really gave youth its identity. While MTV targets urban youth, Channel [V] aims at music lovers of all ages. The telecast of Channel [V] in Bangalore pubs allowed collective viewing from teenagers and young adults alike. Special programs such as "Channel [V] Viewer Awards" or "Channel [V] Music Awards" attracted sponsors and specific commercial spot packages were custom-made to suit the sponsor's product and target audience's needs. As did respondents at Udaya TV, the vice president of Star TV said Doordarshan was not even considered a force to contend with because of its giant terrestrial status. Doordarshan's position on the Indian television scenario was relatively unproblematic for Star TV because the two networks targeted different segments of consumers. The purchasing power of the target population determined the type of advertisers who approached the network. He said: Doordarshan is good for a mass brand where critical volume is very important for the profitability of the company such as Levers, or for that matter, even for Proctor and Gamble, or Cadbury's, where you have distribution spanning right across (various socioeconomic levels). But when it comes to launching new specialized product categories or high priced product categories, I think the (private) satellite network is the obvious choice. The main strategy, he said, was to market global items through local narratives. He said, "we have a global commercial, but (we're) thinking local -- for the minute twist that will give a local flavor which you can run across various channels." Respondents described Star TV as a network that straddled the global and the local, allowing audiences all over the South East Asia region membership through local idioms. Respondents at this office said social objectives of information and education were secondary and the business objective of the network was a primary concern. The network was considering establishing computer training centers (as had Zee TV) for urban youth, but had not yet done so. Zee TV, a partner of Star TV, also marketed itself as a link between corporations and consumers. Its national reach and its Hindi language programming provided competition for Doordarshan in urban centres. Star TV's annual report, Vision Into Reality (1996), describes Zee TV as: India's home grown answer to the advent of satellite channels. While foreign networks had brought the world outside India's borders into sharper focus, Zee TV, EL TV and Zee Cinema have turned the cameras on life at home, re-acquainting viewers with humor, drama and issues of a distinctly Indian nature. Zee TV programmes consistently dominate the top-ten rated shows each week in cable and satellite households (p. 19). Like Star TV, Zee TV had sales offices all over India. Ambience Space Sellers Limited, a private company, was commissioned to collect advertising for Asia Today Limited network (50 percent of which is owned by Rupert Murdoch), which broadcasts the Zee channel. The regional manager of the Zee TV's Ambience Space Sellers' office in Bangalore (responsible for generating sponsors from primarily Bangalore and Hyderabad) again discussed the nature of Zee TV programming in terms of its difference from Doordarshan. She said advertisers sought Doordarshan because of its overall reach, but approached Zee TV for niche audiences. Zee TV had established itself as a leader in cable and satellite homes. Zee TV viewers could obviously afford cable, and most likely had disposable income to purchase the luxury items advertised on it. She said the network had a progressive, urban identity, as opposed to Doordarshan which had a conservative, rural identity. The Urban, Affluent Consumer Audiences at Star TV and Zee TV were defined according to their capacity as consumers. Viewer profiles for Channel [V] indicated that audiences for this channel were most likely to own durables such as color television sets (80 percent), refrigerators (71 percent), washing machines (28 percent), and music systems (18 percent). Highest ratings in cable homes remained at around 10-12 points for regular programs and touched 57 points for special events such as cricket matches and filmfare awards ("Channel [V]: The Chosen One!" 1997). Zee TV's market report described the network as a 'family channel' with viewers who are "largely more affluent, more educated than the average television viewer (with) a higher spending capacity...The Zee viewers enjoy programmes with a contemporary look and hence they spend a large part of their leisure time watching infotaining programmes on Zee" (p. 1). This report also stated that Zee TV's innovative concepts and high quality of program production attracted and sustained audiences. Zee also played to niche audiences and divided its advertising and program rates according to gender, age, and socioeconomic income. Respondents at Star TV and Zee TV echoed the audience descriptions detailed in the reports and said their audiences were upmarket, wealthy, and critical consumers. The vice president of sales at Star TV said audiences in Bangalore were ardent fans of Hindi and regional language movies. This was the main reason for the success of regional language channels such as Sun TV and Udaya TV. On Star TV, English serials received mediocre ratings -- ratings that shot up once they were dubbed. English serials such as "X Files" were well-produced and hence their dubbed versions were better received than their remakes in Hindi. Also, with different regional languages segregating audiences all across the country, the dubbing of movies (particularly Disney films with their universalist themes and stereotypical portrayal of love and friendship) into regional languages was extremely popular. Competing Identities To summarize, the interviews revealed that the networks differed remarkably in their notions of nation, audience, competition, and station identity. Interestingly, respondents high up in the station's hierarchy at Bangalore Doordarshan perceived the station to be a bastion of Indian culture and social development. Those directly involved with news and entertainment, although echoing these goals, felt the network's focus had shifted from government-centred, development programming to entertainment-oriented programming. The format of the news was expanded to include alternate points of view besides that of the government, and had included crime reporting as well. In all, Doordarshan respondents felt the network was undertaking massive innovations to combat competition from private networks, yet competition itself was not an issue because the network's reach and infrastructure sustained its firm foothold as a television giant. Despite the scramble for product differentiation, Doordarshan personnel were not too alarmed at competition from private cable and satellite television. With over 800 transmitters all across the country, the reach of Doordarshan exceeded 85 percent of the country. The perspective therefore was national rather than local, in that innovations were made on a national scale and progress of the network as a whole was viewed in terms of national ratings. The battle for the local Bangalore urban viewer was not considered a top priority. The programming menu of Bangalore Doordarshan was not chosen in response to competing menus from other networks but to fulfill the social objectives of the network. On the other hand, Udaya TV was constructed as a primarily entertainment channel, which served as an alternative to Doordarshan for Kannadigas. The network was still struggling because of difficulties in assessing the nature of the audience. The network saw itself as clearly different from Doordarshan in its lack of bureaucracy and in its menu of entertainment programs instead of the overload of 'we-know-what's-good-for-you' programming on Doordarshan. Although the respondents here said the network in no way propagated regional identity as a political narrative against national identity, their programming ideas (apart from the hefty menu of film-based programs) and their description of the nature of the network and its programming itself highlighted their efforts at establishing an alternate space for Kannadigas. Their efforts at depoliticizing this space is interpreted as an effort to avoid controversy. Yet this effort itself points to the construction of sub-national viewing communities defined by language -- a construction worthy of note in our understanding of whether private television channels can lead to the fragmentation of the nation. While Udaya TV's audience was perceived to be Kannada-speaking, conservative, and of middle and lower income, those for Star TV and Zee TV were considered to be upscale, wealthy, and with disposable income. All networks relied on market research surveys to provide viewer profiles to supplement commercial packages for corporate sponsors. Only Doordarshan, however, had an in-house Audience Research Unit and framed such research in terms of efforts to better understand the educational, informational, social, and cultural needs of the audience. Udaya TV echoed this sentiment to a certain extent, but given its sole reliance on advertising, limited its risks of in-house production failures and increased its menu of films to sustain its following and thus its ad revenue. Star TV and Zee TV were candid in their construction of their viewers as consumers and discussed audiences' lifestyles and attitudes only in terms of their translation into critical purchasing behavior. The down market image of Doordarshan and Udaya TV is important to note. The similarity in their approaches to audiences may, at one level, be attributed to the fact that both are indigenous channels -- one national, with programming originating from the nation's capital, New Delhi; and the other regional, with programming originating from the state capital, Bangalore. Respondents at both networks had social interests of the viewer in mind, and despite their focus on this, conceded to commercialization for advertising revenue -- substantial in the case of Doordarshan, and completely in the case of Udaya TV. But more important, both were constructed as middle and lower middle class networks by their own employees because of their crucial links to nation-building. Mankekar (1993) writes that nationalism is a middle class phenomenon, and the relationship between 'middle classes' and nationalism is a fundamental one. The key observation that nationalism is a middle class phenomenon has been made by Chatterjee (1993), Rajagopal (1995), and Shields and Muppidi (1996) as well. This observation finds resonance in this study in that the objectives of indigenous networks, as articulated by their respective employees, was the social development of audiences. Doordarshan and Udaya TV were operating within the narratives of nation as propagated in political rhetoric, film discourse, and middle class family life. Respondents at these stations felt it their duty to educate and entertain masses in the rural areas (in the case of Doordarshan) and urban areas (in the case of Udaya TV). Respondents at Star TV and Zee TV, however, although Indians, were executing marketing directives from a foreign center whose primary concern was to provide non-controversial and entertaining fare to attract the maximum number of viewers and sponsors. The differing perceptions of network identity and audience community lead to the broader question: can the presence of multiple television networks in India result in fragmented viewing communities and thus to the eventual fragmentation of the nation? Although Doordarshan retains its monopoly over audiences at present due to its reach and infrastructure, in the long run, could private regional channels in each state draw away audiences from the national network through slickly produced, regional language-specific programming? These questions are pertinent particularly in the context of political unrest in the country. Also, these questions are important because of the political interests of the owners of some of the private regional networks. While it is obvious that a time study is necessary to understand the implications of these networks on national identity, we must avoid the trap of television-determinism where we assume that competing definitions of network, nation, and audience necessarily result in fragmented communities each with a differing sense of nation and self. We may address these questions by beginning with an understanding of where nation, region, and community are constructed. We need to understand the resonance of these definitions within audiences to adequately understand the impact of television in India on audiences' perceptions of national identity. The author undertakes such an analysis in another study. ReferencesAikat, D. & Singhal, A. (1993). Think global, act local: India's Bangalore technopolis: A of communication technology transfer in India's Silicon Valley. Paper presented at the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, Kansas City, KS. Channel [V]: The Chosen One! (1997). Office report. Chatterjee, P. (1993). The Nation and its Fragments. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. Chatterji, P. C. (1991). Broadcasting in India. New Delhi: Sage. Curtin, M. (1997). Dynasty in drag: Imagining global television. In L. Spigel & M. Curtin (Eds.), The Revolution Wasn't Televised: Sixties Television and Social Conflict, pp. 244-262. New York: Routledge. Doordarshan Audience Research Unit (1996). New Delhi: Nutech Pholithographers. Featherstone, M. (1995). Undoing Culture: Globalization, Postmodernism and Identity, (pp. 102-125). London, Thousand Oaks, New Delhi: Sage. Finnegan, R. (1992). Oral Traditions and Verbal Arts: A Guide to Research Practices. London and New York: Routledge. Hall, S. (1994). Cultural studies: Two paradigms. In N.B. Dirks, G. Eley, and S.B. Ortner (Eds.), Culture/Power/History: A Reader in Contemporary Social Theory, pp. 520-538. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Huntington, Samuel J. (1996). The Clash of Civilizations and the ReMaking of World Order. New York: Simon and Schuster. Krishnan, P. & Dighe, A. (1990) Affirmation and Denial: Construction of Femininity on Indian Television. New Delhi and London: Sage. Mankekar, P. (1993a). Reconstituting 'Indian Womanhood': An ethnography of television viewers in a North Indian city. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Washington, Seattle. Mattelart, A. (1994). Mapping World Communication. Minneapolis & London: University of Minnesota Press. McMillin, D. C. (1998). Competing Networks, Hybrid Identities: Television and Audiences in India. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN. Midnight session not for MNC ad gimmicks: Elders. (1997, August 14). The Times of India (Bangalore), pp. 7, 11. Mitra, A. (1993). Television and Popular Culture in India. New Delhi: Sage. Morley, D. & Robins, K. (1995). Spaces of Identity: Global Media, Electronic Landscapes and Cultural Boundaries. New York: Routledge. Rajagopal, A. (1996). Mediating modernity: Theorizing reception on a non-western society. The Communication Review, 1 (4), pp. 441-469. Sassen, S. (1996). Whose city is it? Globalization and the formation of new claims. Public Culture, 8, pp. 205-223. Shields, P. & Muppidi, S. (1996). Integration, the Indian state and STAR TV: Policy and theory issues. Paper presented to the Annual Meeting of the International Communication Association, Chicago. Vision Into Reality (1996). Star TV Annual Report. Table 1 Cable and Satellite Penetration in TV homes ________________________________________________________________________ City HH (000) Percentage ________________________________________________________________________ Bangalore 350 43 Delhi 581 31 Madras 288 27 Bombay 1349 50 Calcutta 329 20 Hyderabad 173 21 _______________________________________________ Total percentage of TV homes in the country: 45% Total percentage of C&S homes in the country: 1-2% Source: Doordarshan Audience Research Unit (1996). New Delhi: Nutech Pholithographers. Table 2 Cable and Satellite Channels in India ________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________ Pas 4 Express 6 Rimsat G1 Rimsat G2 Shiva 1 Asiasat 2 ________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________ ESPN BiTV News Sun TV (Tamil) ATN ATN Movies Star Plus MTV BiTV Ent. Raj TV (Tamil) JJTV ATN Ent. Prime Sports Liberty-TCI BiTV Films, Asianet (Malayalam) Eagle TV ATN Current Channel [V] RPG (3) Music, and Sports Gemini TV (Telugu) Udaya TV (Kannada) Affairs BBC CNBC Money TV (Hindi & Zee TV Likely: English) ELTV/Movie Disney (2) Zee Regional Sony Columbia Zed (Zee Time Warner Education) HBO CNN International BBC Doordarshan (2) HT-Pearson Sri Adhikari DSJ TV Apstar 1 Insat 1D Insat 2A Insat 2B Insat 2C ________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________ CNN Int. DD1 DD13 DD2 to DD12 DOORDARSHAN (digital TNT & Cartoon DD16 DD14 DDMovie Channel compression) Network DD15 Time Warner HBO TVBI (Hong Kong) Discovery, Disney, MTV Source: Agarwal, A. (1995, February). A galaxy of choices. India Today, pp. 164-166. Appendix A Questions for Library and Archival Research Description of Networks 1. When was the station established? 2. Where was it established? 3. What is its organizational structure? 4. What are the responsibilities of each department? 5. What are the names of personnel/managers in each department? 6. What is the reach/average share of programming? 7. How are the stations financed? 8. What is the pattern of production and distribution? Legal Context of Networks. a. What are the Cable and Television ordinances that pertain to television and cable in India? b. What freedoms/responsibilities/code of ethics are each station expected to follow? c. How is programming and production of private cable channels (STARTV and regional TV) limited by the government (licence fees, censorship etc)? Appendix B Interviewees* Bangalore Doordarshan Station Director Executive Producer Program Executive News Executive Audience Research Officer Audience Research Executives Udaya TV Vice-President General Manager Star TV Vice-president, Sales Senior sales executive (Channel [V]) Sales executives Zee TV Regional sales manager Office executive Cable operators Managers, SitiCable, UBN, and InCable; cable operators and franchisees *Only the titles of interviewees are provided to protect their privacy. Appendix C Questions for Observation and Interviews at the Television Stations/Offices Personal Information 1. What is the respondent's position/title? 2. What is the respondent's perspective on the television environment in Bangalore? Competition. 1. What does the respondent think of global/national/regional programming? 2. What does the respondent see the network doing to counter global/national/regional competition? 3. Is competition a threat at all to the respective network? Programming. 1. How are decisions made about what programs to include every month? 2. How are programming menus drawn up? 3. How are programming locations selected? 4. How are actors/actresses selected? Station Identity. 1. How is station identity enforced? 2. What are the goals/motto of the network? 3. Does the respondent think the network is accomplishing this goal? Audience Connection. 1. What community of viewers is the network trying to reach? Why? 2. What is the nature of the network's audience research? Endnotes [1] Independence for both Pakistan and India was declared at midnight, August 15, 1947. Pakistan celebrates independence day on August 14, and India does on August 15. [2] Dependency theory, as developed by Frank (1984) states that the flow of information, goods and services between developed countries in the center and developing countries in the periphery is conducted by political and economic elites such that the developing countries on the periphery are maintained in their positions of dependence. [3] The terms transnational, national, and local pertain not so much to the reach of the networks, but the identity each network strives for itself. This is because Doordarshan, like Star TV and Zee TV, may be received in various countries in Asia, and Udaya TV can be received across the country. [4] At the time of this writing, the exchange rate was USD 1 = Rs. 40. [5] Star TV's vice president of sales in Bangalore said that fees were most often paid in US dollars because the dollar's value was steadier than that of the rupee. [6] These studies resulted in the Chanda Committee report in 1966 to examine the development potential and profitability of radio and television in the country; the SITE project in 1975 to educate people in rural areas on agriculture, health, and sanitation, and to provide supplementary lessons for primary school students; the launching of the ETV (Educational Television) channel as part of the SITE Continuity project; and the broadcast of the countrywide classroom in 1984 through a collaboration between the University Grants Commission and the Indian Space Research Organization (Chatterji, 1991). [7] With the Asiad Games in 1982, color television was introduced, making coverage of the games the biggest national and international project of Doordarshan and the most widely watched series (Doordarshan 1996). The Asiad also shifted focus from educational programs to sports and entertainment. Several other genres such as information-based talk shows, quiz programs, entertainment-education programs for children, film song and sports programs emerged in the mid-1980s (Mitra 1993). Telenovela-inspired "Hum Log" (We People), consisting of 156 episodes, ran for 17 months in 1984-85 and tripled Doordarshan's advertising revenue (Singhal and Rogers, 1988). Realizing the potential for serialized drama, various serials emerged in the latter half of the 1980s. The differentiation of television programming in the mid-1980s is attributed to increased commercial sponsorship for entertainment-oriented programming, availability of a variety of products on the Indian market due to attempts at economic liberalization, and to increasing product awareness and purchasing power of middle class consumers (Mankekar 1993). [8] The establishment of Star TV in 1991 in Hong Kong by Li Ka-Shing of Hutchison Whampoa and his son Richard Li, owner of the Pacific Central Group, coincided with India's June 1991 economic liberalization policy. Realizing the potential of the Indian market in the liberalized environment, Rupert Murdoch purchased 64 percent of Star TV, which uplinks to ASIA SAT-1, and entered the Indian communications arena in 1993. Murdoch bought the remaining 36 percent of Star TV in July 1994 ("Murdoch buys balance," 1994). In keeping with its policy of encouraging open investment and liberalized trade, the Indian government did not curb the flow of Star TV channels such as MTV, Prime Time Sports, and BBC World Service into India (Shields and Muppidi, 1996). Li-Ka Shing and Richard Li sold the Hindi channel Zee TV for USD 5 million to Bombay industrialist Subhash Chandra in 1992. Murdoch became Chandra's partner in 1993 and acquired 50 percent of Asia Today Limited (ATL) which runs Zee TV. Zee TV channels are Zee TV, EL, Zee TV Cinema, and Music Asia. The network provides an exhaustive menu of Hindi films and film songs to Asian audiences (Pathania, 1995). Star TV split its beam in 1994 into a northern one which catered to China, and a southern one specifically for the South Asia region. MTV left Star TV in 1994 and Star TV introduced Channel [V] which took on MTVs trademark programs such as the hour-long Hindi top-ten film-video countdown called "Oye MTV" (now called BPL Oye) and offers competition to MTV which re-entered the television scene in 1994, this time on the Doordarshan platform. Star TV and Zee TV's success as business networks was recognized by politicians and entrepreneurs in various states in India. By 1993, private television production centres were established in various state capitals. Thus SUN TV was established in 1993 in Madras, Raj TV in Andhra Pradesh, and AsiaNet in Trivandrum. Prevented from uplinking to government satellites, these networks uplink to RIMSAT (Doordarshan, 1995), and provide a wide variety of programming in regional languages, from Indian films and variety shows for entertainment, to serials and documentaries for education and development (See Table 1 for cable and satellite penetration in India). The most successful and notable of the private regional networks is Sun TV, a Madras-based network, which is controlled by Kalanidhi Maran, the nephew of Industry Minister Murasoli Maran and grandson of the family of Dravida Munetra Kazhagam (DMK) political party chief, Muthuvel Karunanidhi (Paneerselvan, 1997). Kalanidhi entered an arrangement with Singapore Cable Vision for 24-hour transmission and launched Udaya TV in Bangalore in 1994 under the leadership of his uncle Murasoli Selvan. [9] Kalanidhi, the owner of SUN TV in Madras, entered an arrangement with Singapore Cable Vision for 24-hour transmission and launched Udaya TV in Bangalore in 1994 under the leadership of his uncle Murasoli Selvan. [10] Although the word mana translates directly into 'mind,' in the Indian context it implies mind, body, and spirit, that is, the whole being of the individual. [11] The vice president said he was aware of the American version much after "Adarsha Dampathigalu" had been conceptualized and produced.
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text: Jennifer earned a BS from Michigan State University and an MA from Wayne State University in speech-language pathology. Additionally, she is trained in Links to Language, PECS, and The Kaufman Speech to Language Protocol. Jennifer came to us from Oakwood Hospital where she was a speech-language pathologist, working with children and adults in outpatient and acute care. Jennifer lives in West Bloomfield with her husband and three children and in her spare time enjoys running, yoga and spending time with her family.

subset: commoncrawl


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Tally: You've always said that turning 50 and entering menopause are great gifts, Leslie, What do you mean by this?
Let me first be personal,Tally. My 50th birthday was the only birthday in my life that I cared about. It felt to me as though 50 was a watershed—the moment in time where I left behind my previous life in order to create a new life for myself. At that time I was writing my first novel, Ludwig: A Spiritual Thriller, about Beethoven. My eldest son, Branton, gave me an amazing birthday gift. What he did was lay aside two days for me and a dozen other people to celebrate, not just my birthday, but their own passages in their own lives. One of the things he did—he sent six bouquets of my favorite flowers—Oriental lilies—each containing a dozen lilies. Then on the Friday night there was a knock at the door. I opened the front door to find a woman with a violin in her hand. She said "Hello. We are a quartet from the Welsh National Opera, and we have come to play Beethoven's late quartets for you." Anyway, I had done a fast to celebrate my life-change at 50, basically. I wasn't, at that time, entering menopause—it was about a year later that I did. Read More About The Best Is Yet To Come


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MOX. What music looks like.


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November 29, 2010
File Size 5.3 MB / Running Time 5:50 By Russ Niles, Editor-in-Chief
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3
Podcast Index | How to Listen | Subscribe Via RSS
AVweb's Russ Niles spoke with new EAA President Rod Hightower recently about his first impressions of the organization and his short- and long-term goals. We begin our three-part series with a discussion about EAA's place in general aviation.
Want to save this podcast and listen later? Click here for the MP3 file.
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Those who kidnapped her identified themselves as Police.
Krishni works for the development media organization Internews.
The announcement came after nominations for the election closed at noon today (Jun 24).
According to the Additional District Elections Commissioner in Vavuniya, S. Karunanidhi, the nomination list for TULF in Vavuniya District was rejected due to a discrepancy in a signature of a nominee.
He has been arrested for allegedly helping the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam ( L.T.T.E.) was living in the rebel- controlled area in Nothern Sri Lanka escaped two days before the defeat of the Tigers in a major action last month.
The Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (TRC) has planned to set up solar powered coin-operated telephone booths in welfare centres in the North where civilians displaced by the just-concluded military operation are housed.
The petitioner claimed that these people had relatives and friends who were willing to take them into their homes, but the Sri Lankan authorities are holding them by force inside the camps.
The case in question is that of Amarakoon Dissanayake Sarath Kumara, who suffered serious injuries and had to be hospitalized, allegedly after being forcibly taken to a police station in the Ratnapura division and assaulted by police officers. Later he was produced before a Magistrate's Court where false charges were filed against him.
The Presidential Commission of Inquiry, established to look into serious violations of human rights committed since 2006, was disbanded on Sunday. The Commission of Inquiry was unable to complete its mandate as no extensions were granted. Of the 16 cases referred, only seven were investigated with reports on five finalized. Not a single one resulted in any justice.
This is Mannar district and in a small area near the coast where there was no heavy fighting People in this village fled quite early in the recent war and most if not all were not in the now disputed "IDP camps/refugee centres" Majority are Muslim and not Tamil returnees Only 540 families have been resettled so far in 06 villages in Arippu and around it. Livelihood opportunities are almost absent for them and would have to be fed through out the year There are at present not 300,000 IDP's that most agencies speak about, but 550,000 IDP's in Sri Lanka
Each week, the World Health Organization – Health Action in Crises in Geneva produces information highlights on critical health-related activities in countries where there are humanitarian crises. Drawing on the various WHO programmes, contributions cover activities from field and country offices and the support provided by WHO regional offices and headquarters. The mandate of the WHO departments specifically concerned with Emergency and Humanitarian Action in Crises is to increase the effectiveness of the WHO contribution to crisis preparedness and response, transition and recovery. This note, which is not exhaustive, is designed for operational use and does not reflect any official position of the WHO Secretariat.
The LTTE is considered one of the deadliest terrorist groups, having invented the concept of the modern-day suicide bomber and carried out the murder of two sitting heads of state. In addition, the Tamil Tigers pioneered use of female suicide bombers, homemade minisubmarines, ultralight aircraft and "warehouse ships" pre-positioned on the high seas to resupply terrorist operations on shore.
Between January 1 and May 31 this year, a total of 459 such cases were reported by the 63 police stations in the North and the East – 128 incidents in the North and 331 in the East.
Tennakone (King of South), Alahakone (beautiful King), Weerakone (heroic King), Samarakone, Illangakone (King of Srilanka – Illankai in Tamil),
Navy Spokesman, D.K.P Dassanayake told the Daily Mirror that the comments made by Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi earlier this week were incorrect. Mr. Karunanidhi had claimed that the Sri Lankan Government was building a military base on the small Island which lies North West of Sri Lanka. Captain Dassanayake said.
The two men, both ethnic Sri Lankan Tamils, were reported missing eight days ago and were subsequently discovered to have been taken into custody by Sri Lankan officials, the UN office in Colombo said in a statement.
• 01st May – Government websites hacked • 01st May – Visa restrictions for Journalists • 03rd May – Tissainayagam case highlighted by US president Obama • 03rd May – Hindu/Tamil festival banned • 04th May – Foreign Js are indulging in malicious reporting – Army • 04th May – Punish those worked for peace – minister • 04th May – Web sites blocked • 07th May – Web editor questioned • 07th May – Sirasa correspondent attacked
In his remarks at last night's awards gala at the Foreign Policy Association in New York, Mr. Ban said that he has made it clear to President Mahinda Rajapaksa that though the fighting might be over, "there is much more to do."
Sri Lanka Customs has banned several South Indian magazines in the recent past, including Ananda Vikadam. Owner of the well known Tamil bookshop, Poobalasingham, Mr. Sritharasing was detained for importing Ananda Vikadam on 5th March 2009. A few days later student who was going to Jaffna was arrested at theRathmalana domestic airport when air port security found a copy of the magazine with him (see MFSL monthly report March 2009).
Among the detainees are three Australian Tamils. The Australian detainees are a 62-year old man and two women aged 26 and 29.
Monsignor Albert Malcolm Ranjith, was serving in a top post at the Vatican.


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What's on
Student WednesdayWednesday 09 May 2012, 14:00 - 16:30 Every Wednesday during term time Techniquest has a special offer for students. £2 after 2pm for all students (NUS required). So if you would like to do something interesting with your Wednesday afternoon, then Techniquest is the place to be. Location Techniquest |


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Kitchen Weekly
8 easy, family friendly recipes each week
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Curtis Stone's homemade burger recipe
You haven't had a burger until you've had this delicious homemade burger. A moist, succulent beef patty is topped with cheese, bacon and crispy lettuce on a soft round, toasted bun. Your kids will be begging ou to make this simple recipe that they can help prepare too.
BBQ, Curtis Stone Recipes, Hamburger, Mince
- 560g 3 Star Coles beef mince
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- ½ brown onion
- salt and pepper
- 2 garlic cloves, minced
- 2 tsp dijon mustard
- 1 tsp worcestershire sauce
- ½ tsp salt
- ¼ tsp pepper
- 1/2 x 400g large egg, beaten
- 4 Coles round rolls
- 2 tbsp Coles butter
- 4 Bega natural cheese slices
- 190g middle bacon
- 8 lettuce leaves
Cook bacon untill crisp and place on paper towel.
Heat tbsp of oil in heavy small sauté pan over medium heat. Add onion, salt and pepper and sauté until tender. Stir in minced garlic. Set aside. Mix cooled onions and garlic with mince, mustard, Worcestershire sauce, ½ tsp salt, and ¼ tsp pepper. Add egg. Divide mixture into 4 and place in 4-inch ring moulds.
Preheat pan or barbecue for medium-high heat. Brush bread roll with butter. Grill, cut side down, cover and set aside. Grill patties until brown then turn, cook until medium-rare, or to your liking.
To serve, place lettuce on bun then patties and cheese and bacon on top.
- "A fun meal to enjoy with the kids," says Curtis Stone.
- Try making the burger with chicken or turkey mince for a change.
- Kids will love mini burgers served on mini buns.
- This recipe was created by Curtis Stone.


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currently at ...
Tony Leung Chiu Wai | |
Date of Birth: Jun 27, 1962 Country: China Biography: Tony Leung Chiu Wai was born in Hong Kong on 27 June 1962. He and his younger sister were raised by their mother after his father left them. In 1982, after passing the training courses of TVB, Tony became a TV actor and became famous for his comedy style in such TV shows as Lu ding ji (1983) or Jue dai shuang jiao (1979). However, he didn't limit himself to television and began showing his versatility in films like Sha shou hu die meng (1989) and Bei qing cheng shi (1989). Total Films at Criticker: 50 - You've Seen 0 |
Biography last updated by bitap
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Browse recruitment in Weymouth featuring photos, videos, vouchers and recruitment reviews to help you choose the right local recruitment for you.
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baresip is a bare-bones SIP user agent. It supports SIP, SDP, RTP/RTCP, and STUN/TURN/ICE, and IPv4 and IPv6, and is RFC-compliant and has portable C89 and C99 source code. A modular plugin architecture provides stdio, cons, and evdev user interfaces, celt, g711, g722, gsm, ilbc, l16, and speex audio codecs, alsa, coreaudio, gst, portaudio, oss, winwav, and mda audio drivers, speex_pp, speex_aec, speex_resamp, and sndfile audio filters, the avcodec video codec, avformat, quicktime, qtcapture, v4l, and v4l2 video sources, sdl, opengl, and x11 video display drivers, and srtp media encoding.
libre is a generic library for real-time communications with asynchronous I/O support. It is written in portable POSIX source code that conforms to the ANSI C89 and ISO C99 standards. It is robust and fast, with a low memory footprint. It also features RFC compliance and support for IPv4 and IPv6. Protocol implementations include SIP, SDP, RTP/RTCP, BFCP, DNS, and STUN/TURN/ICE.
Ekiga (formely known as GnomeMeeting) is a soft phone, video conferencing, and instant messenger application for use over the Internet. It supports HD sound quality and video up to DVD size and quality. It is interoperable with many other standards compliant software, hardware, and service providers as it uses both of the major telephony standards, SIP and H.323.
HOMER is a robust, carrier-grade, scalable SIP capturing system and monitoring application with hEP, IP Proto4 (IPIP) encapsulation, and port mirroring/monitoring support right out of the box, ready to process and store large amounts of signaling with instant searches, end-to-end analysis, and drill-down capabilities for ITSPs, VoIP providers, and trunk suppliers using SIP signaling.
Yate is a next-generation telephony engine. While currently focused on Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and PSTN, its power lies in its ability to be easily extended. It supports SIP, H.323, IAX, MGCP, Jingle, Jabber, E1, T1, analogic, robbed bit, ISDN PRI, BRI, and SS7. YateClient is an Instant Messenger and Voice application for Jabber/Jingle IM, SIP, H.323, and IAX VoIP protocols.
The Ozeki VoIP Service Checker is a tool you can use for checking the availability of VoIP services. It can be used to verify whether a given service exists, see whether it can be reached from a particular network, and check whether the user details (such as the username and password) to access the service are correct. It was developed because many mobile Internet providers block VoIP traffic.
Speech synthesis for Asterisk using MS Translator text-to-speech service to synthesize speech and play it back to the user. It supports a variety of languages, local caching of voice data, and 8kHz or 16kHz sample rates to provide the best possible sound quality along with the use of wideband codecs.


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You're watching...
President Obama's worst week ever?
Three straight days of dismal economic news
- Duration 7:02
- Date Feb 1, 2013
You're watching...
Three straight days of dismal economic news
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Only two weeks into his final term President Obama -- already to have his worst week ever.
And it's all thanks to his inability to get a handle on the economy -- -- -- republic samples on Wednesday.
Reports emerged that the economy contracted.
For the first time in more than three years.
Then yesterday we learned that applications for jobless benefits jumped by by more than 38000 -- a week topping out at 368000.
This news coincidentally came the same day -- team Obama announced it was disbanding its jobs council.
Then -- icing on the cake hit this morning when we learn the unemployment rate is back up to seven point 9%.
And that number could easily be well over 10%.
If the Labor Department didn't play with the numbers to suit the left wing -- Here with reaction are radio talk show hosts Hugh Hewitt and Leslie Marshall Leslie is also a Fox News contributor but you always start with you.
Tough week for Obama -- but what do you expect when the only spend five point eight trillion box.
You know Eric it was a terrible week here at play right it may go down -- worst week -- the beginning of the recognition that we're going in an Obama recession.
And the president has turned his back on the nation's unemployed that number going up to seven point 9%.
Everywhere you turn every arm of the Obama administration is launching a war on jobs everywhere you turn every agency.
And it and the consequences of this are just beginning to show up and he is in different -- as they get shock a lot of America.
Now let's -- -- Wednesday President Obama said he was suspending his jobs council.
What does the economy's so good jobs are so good or he's not up for reelection again.
Well -- -- think it has me really happy about this I mean this cuts more spending.
And -- are you telling me when the alarm clock Leslie stat doesn't -- unless thousands I think we have about economy that's.
Let's what are Americans doing well what -- you cuts more spending doesn't cost anything to get Jeff Immelt the rumor on the telephone does it.
-- let let me tell you corporate America today -- with the market that they are doing fine its corporate America the private sector that everybody on the right like my friend you there.
Says should be creating jobs not the government is not the government's responsibility to create jobs why -- we need a jobs council gentlemen well.
-- go -- here I'm actually it's that it.
It's the government's responsibility not to kill jobs let me give you three specific examples the -- braces coal plant in Corpus -- killed by EPA just this week.
That Gunnison -- hand in southwestern Colorado listed by the department of interior.
Gonna shut down oil and gas exploration kill off housing in Colorado and -- let's talk about the sequestration that -- -- -- fact the medical device tax 2.3 percent on gross receipts perhaps the biggest job killer of obamacare kick -- That is the government killing jobs to private sector doing the best it -- Wesley.
But your president your cut your party your your representatives.
Are at every turn killing off jobs in this country -- not the private sector.
That's not doing our job at the federal government that skill and.
Hang -- about the I want to listen to on Wednesday also on the GDP number came out and showed contraction for the first time in three and a half years.
-- 540 trillion bucks down the drain contracting economy.
ABC Condit talked about a little bit on the nightly news NBC disregarded it completely didn't even show up was what Scott -- at CBS news had to say about it.
A shrinking it.
-- -- -- over time spells recession but don't panic yet this number is likely to be revised as more data come in.
Senior business correspondent Anthony Mason found this dark cloud may have a silver lining.
The headline may be disappointing but the underlying economy was showing renewed strength at the end of last year as one economist.
Put it it's the best contraction in the US economy you're ever gonna see.
Bristol plaza a -- got -- economists that works for the department but he may be so high and hardly know it's gonna be revised and by the way if it's revises -- going to be better anyway.
Number two silver lining really contraction a number of three.
-- really but that's all really.
Listen you you know I'm normally a pessimist but can I make some lemonade -- all the -- that you guys want to see here.
We have to look at if you want to talk about revision.
Yeah note to -- -- you guys are saying that the books were cooked before the election and now we see there were visionary numbers for September October November off we see a 100000 jobs created in construction -- just the past four months.
That tells me guys in the housing situation is turning around and you know that is key to our economy.
This is not double dipping this is not a recession this is a tenth of 1% difference in the unemployment you don't want to hold -- -- -- we -- -- GDP is -- to the -- that cuts in the -- Arguably the economy strong or not you may ask the twelve million people were out of work whether it is -- not but.
But Q is there ever a good time to have it I -- a contraction or recession in the economy number one.
And why is the left wing leaning left wing media covering confidence.
I got CBS report Eric is amazing this isn't a talking point these jobs that are being killed in Corpus Christi in Colorado across the medical device industry.
These are talking points -- these are real people who are losing their futures because this president and his administration.
Are killing jobs 2.3.
Percent -- On gross receipts is gonna take one of our strongest sector -- medical devices sector it's got 400000 people working for -- gonna contract by 102030%.
If this president does not act so it's not a talking point a contraction in the economy is a disaster for real people.
Not beltway people not pundits not CBS reporter.
But real people and I I can't believe the president is actually not talking -- this thing is is off.
I don't watching Super Bowl or something he's got to be concerned let's say if if -- rattle off some numbers it if the economy's so good and good -- you bomber coverage happening Obama -- is working.
Why are 48 million people on food stamps right now and the number were spending on food.
Stamps has tripled since he took over.
I never said this is a great situation what I said is this is not going back where we are not double dipping were not in a recession.
When you look at those -- -- visionary numbers when you look at construction when you look at health care by the way whichever BB seven cost jobs he's created jobs according to this last report.
This is steady slow absolutely no question but we're not going in the wrong direction I think what this show is actually is that we don't need.
More cuts I think the spending cuts -- actually negatively affected our economy and and we saw that with the GDP.
Knew I had about 1520 seconds last word.
Well if the sequestration on the Department of Defense is a disaster the president said it wasn't gonna happen the president is not -- a word about stopping it once again he is responsible for the contraction and Leslie.
Negative growth is negative growth it down 110 of a percent the beginning of the Obama recession are -- -- -- -- you hear it Leslie Marshall thank you guys.


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Bubba Watson is among several players who earned his first PGA Tour win at the Travelers. Will we see another breakthrough this week, or will a proven champion take home the trophy? Check out our leaderboard.
In the second installment of his blog, 2014 U.S. Ryder Cup Captain Tom Watson reflects on a refreshingly difficult U.S. Open -- the kind he remembers well -- a grueling upcoming schedule and a scouting trip to Gleneagles.
Justin Rose wins the U.S. Open, Billy Horschel wins best dressed and who will win the PGA Professional National Championship? All of these topics and more in this week's "Weekly Golf Buzz."
Is there a better place for a great walk than the golf course? I can't think of one. This week we asked our friends in PGA.com Facebook Nation to identify the best courses to walk. As always, you came up with great ones.
How does one of the all-time great quarterbacks in NFL history enjoy himself nowadays? On the golf course, of course. PGA.com talked with Hall-of-Famer Dan Marino about why he loves playing so much.
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