Indian Television Yesterday and Today

Indian television is not old as US television, but it has contributed much to the world’s second largest population a lot in terms of entertainment and values. I remember those days, when television was available only in few homes and only Dur Darshan was the channel available on it. Malgudi Days was one of the best serial, ruled that era. Days passed the black n white television era were gone for good, and Color Television was introduced. Still It was much costlier for a Middle Class home. But watching Television wasn’t like watching the magic.

We can say in 1990’s the actual Indian Television came, because the television was much cheaper that days, and many poor people also could afford it. Cable came in the same era, allowing the distribution of Direct to Air channels. Z TV was one of the first free channels available, and Z Tv was also one of the few paid channel available after few years. The days were golden, and TV was ruled by serials like Hum Panch. And then the year 2000 came, when the K from star Plus ruled the TRP’s and Indian Peoples heart. From kahani ghar ghar ki to Kyuki Saans bhi kabhi Bahu Thi, Ekata Kapoor literally ruled the Indian Women’s.  Still the family Drama is most popular among all the women’s , but the taste of Indian television have shifted more towards the Reality Shows. Who can forget about Rakhi and Rahuls’ swayanwar and splitville . In the mean time the Game shows was much popular, like Kaun Banega Karorpati and Sawal Das Lakh ka, Amitabh Bacchan was the success behind the Kaun Banega Karorpati.

We have seen many Horror shows also in Indian Television, I remember, we used to watch Z Horror Show on Z TV and it was so famous, I still remember its title music also. Then Sony channel also introduced one show named Aahat. It’s still going on in 2010 also. We also had Sshhh Koi Hai’s multiple seasons on Star One and Star Plus. We never had a dedicated Indian Cartoon Channel, but we had our Mythological Era’s Ramayana and Mahabharata adopted to cartoon serials and Cartoon Movies.

Let’s see about Super Heroes, our first super hero was no one but shaktiman. People used to love him so much. We also had a space adventure hero as Captain Vyom. Unfortunately after that we didn’t see many such famous superheroes.

Indian Television has gone far in the news industry, we have equal no of news channels as entertainment channels. Like Star News, IBN etc, when we are talking about the Indian television we should talk about Dance and Singing shows also. Indian Idol based on American Idol was a huge success, and then the era comes for the music talent shows, like Sa-Re-Ga-Ma-Pa. In dance shows we have Dance India Dance etc,

Indian Television is not behind in Youth Serials also, we have a splendid serial Dil Mil Gaye AKA DMG. Youths are still watching it after 400-500 episodes also; Dr Armaan Malik AKA Karan Singh Grover is the leading Hero in it. We also have Mile Jab Ham Tum as well as Left Right Left as few other youth serials.