Case Study: Must Zee TV In India

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Case Study: Must Zee TV At a time when none of the big names in media or otherwise considered India as a TV market, Subhash Chandra took a bold and risky leap in October of 1992 with Zee TV. Though it faced major challenges both externally and internally, Zee TV nonetheless achieved its success and changed Indian TV history. Given its success, as Zee TV moves forward, it is certain that the company faces more opportunities, including plans for content, distribution, and export/import of its programming. When television was first introduced in 1959, the Indian government “treated TV as a radio-like information dissemination channel” and keep the programming highly limited and controlled (Anand and Khanna 2). In 1976, when Doordarshan was created as a government-owned channel, it endured many restrictions but chiefly in advertising and the airing of specific programs. Private companies like Zee not only had to face this, but also was prohibited from broadcasting signals from within India and, at the same time, hindered by India’s foreign exchange boundaries. While public and private TV companies worked to bring India its entertainment, they also had to consider the distinctive cultural characteristics of India, such as language, literacy, and preferences. Anand and Khanna elucidate that it while Hindi was the primary and national language, there were still many who spoke in their regional dialects: “Programming had to cater to the numerous languages spoken by India’s more

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