Bhaskar narrates tragic tale of public television - By Saumya Bhatia http://www.asianage.com/main.asp?layout=2&cat1=92&cat2=215&newsid=189421&RF=DefaultMain
New Delhi: Thursday night clearly belonged to Bhaskar Ghose who along with renowned journalist Sir Mark Tully, television and film critic Amita Malik and media analyst Sevanti Ninan discussed "The Future of Public Service Broadcasting — Is Doordarshan Up to It?" at the India Habitat Centre. Ghose's recently launched book Doordarshan Days formed the base for the discussion. In the book, Ghose recounts with disarming frankness and characteristic humour, his struggle to bring about a change, revealing in the process the tragic tale of public television in India. Ghose was the director general of Doordarshan in the 80's. Ghose said, "Who would have thought 10 years ago that someday we would have an underground rail? Today, we have Metro and I do believe that things can change even when it comes to Doordarshan." Amita Malik was quick to point out that "If you have to have Doordarshan back on its feet, it has to do away with the babus and say goodbye to the casual attitude." Though she went on to say that All India Radio is more professional than Doordarshan. Sir Mark Tully said, "According to me, Public Service Broadcasting cannot be controlled by the government. But at the same time, with the advent of the Internet, commercialisation of channels, presence of a trustworthy broadcasting system is essential." Media analyst Sevanti Ninan further added that the country has a varied audience and Doordarshan has effectively been showing programmes intended for other sections. "Its public messaging service is a successful venture," she added. >From the audience, filmmaker Sagari Chhabria said, "Indian filmmakers make films with much difficulty, but their films are neither shown on Doordarshan nor on any private channel." To this, Ghose said that it was a failure on the part of the national broadcaster. _______________________________________________ Goajourno mailing list [email protected] http://puggy.symonds.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/goajourno
