Mass media in India has had quite a late run, so-to-speak. The early years post-independence were a tumultuous time. The country needed to settle in on a lot of things. It had just achieved its freedom; yet, there were many elements of the puzzle that had to be put into the right place. Thus, it was not until the fag end of the fifties, a full decade and some years after tasting freedom that the nation woke up to its first televised broadcast.

There were only a handful of households that had access to sets and there were no options in terms of TV channels so-to-speak. The government in-fact was the first one off the blocks and Doordarshan. The terrestrial broadcast quality was disliked by many, but with no real alternative on the horizon, things stayed the same all through till the end of the Eighties. However, much as people cringed at the quality of the programming or the crummy broadcast signals, there were still some telly-classics that ruled the airwaves at the time.

With the beginning of the Nineties, came in the liberalization of the economy. What this brought along with it were the seeds of a revolution – a whiff of fresh air, so strong, it went on to transform the look and feel forever. For the first time in the history of the nation, viewers could choose to watch Hindi TV shows across multiple channels. These television shows also reflected the aspirations of a liberated population. Consumer durables, luxury purchases, and many more things suddenly began to be seen in public. Viewers watched as their favourite stars used a particular range of products and they too wanted the same things that they could see on the screen.

As things progressed so did the viewership profiles. Television programming had gone from being pre-dominantly a means of information dissemination and mass entertainment to a constantly evolving medium that was pushing the envelope on what could or could not be portrayed on the screen. Thus, came in the youngsters and viewers from all age-group. The industry too responded by creating customized programming that appealed to each of these viewership groups. Thus, today the chances are that one merely has to switch on their television set and the chances are that they would find something relevant to watch irrespective of their age, location, gender or programming preferences.

The digitization movement that is currently sweeping across the nation is yet another glorious era for the industry. Viewers have quickly gone from pausing programs in real time and recording things for later viewing to watching entire TV shows online, thereby uncovering an altogether different level in convenience.

The best thing about all these developments is that it only points to an exciting future whose possibilities are just starting to be uncovered.