Southern Discomfort

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Think about it.. more than 60 per cent of the english speaking audience for television news channels is south of the Vindhyas (atleast thats what the television audience meter ratings tell us). Yet, more than 75 per cent of the news reporting on television is confined to the metros of Mumbai and Delhi according to a survey conducted by a research group. Its a dichotomy that is embarassing.

Why is the south so poorly covered on the news channels? Several explanations have been offered. The easy one is that the 'tyranny of distance' works against the south. If news channels are headquartered in Delhi, then its so much easier to reflect the concerns of Defence Colony than it is of any suburb of Chennai or Bangalore. Since most news channels have large bureaus in Delhi or Mumbai, the two cities do get disproportionate news coverage. So much easier to pack off a reporter to a location in Delhi thats just a few kilometres away from office than find out whats happening in some city in the south. What happens in the Delhi high court invariably makes the news, what happens in Thiruvanathapuram's court rarely makes the news. A viewer recently wrote in to suggest that the only time we cover interior Tamil Nadu is when its struck by a tsunami. While that might be a trifle exaggerated, there is little doubt that our news binoculars often do not stretch beyond the Vindhyas, breeding a growing sense of resentment and even anger at being left out of the news hierarchy.

Distance is only one factor. Whats equally true is that the so-called "national" channels increasingly act and look like "local" city channels. So, a Delhi-based "national" channel will focus on "local" Delhi news rather than on news emanating from other cities. With 'localisation' the flavour of the season, its not surprising that the south has turned to its own regional channels as the primary source of information. If a "national" channel is seen as a Delhi or Mumbai channel, then what option does a channel from the south have but to showcase news from the region? Instead, of acting as a national unifier, television channels are encouraging a particular form of sub-nationalism, where the news reflects local rather than national priorities. In some ways, this is not such a bad thing. For just as the country can no longer be governed from Delhi, news channels too can no longer be commandered from the national capital. The future lies in "localisation".

In this context, I am glad that this week we have on CNN-IBN done a week of programming out of Bangalore as part of our eye on India series. Bangalore, in a sense, is a microcosm of the new, emerging India, a city which is more cosmopolitan than Kannadiga. Its a city whose infrastructure is under strain, but is also a metropolis which drives aspiration and ambition of a younger, mobile India. Its a city which needs to be on the national map, not only when Infosys declares its results or when Deve Gowda gets itchy for power, but also when its citizens are overwhelmed by traffic, water logging and spiralling property prices. In other words, the Delhi and Mumbai issues that always seem to capture the prime time slots need to be shared with the Bangalores, the Chennais and the Hyderabads. Hopefully, the eye on Bangalore series will spur more channels to look seriously at the south, not as some kind of Bharat Natyam-Kathakali travel book exotica but as an integral part of this country, with concerns similar to Delhiities and Mumbaikars. Of course, even the north-south divide is nowhere near as acute as that between rural and urban India on news channels. But we will leave that issue to be debated for another day, another time. See you next week. Or is they would say in Bangalore, (or Bengaloroo) Hogi Bartane..