Broadcasting’s Model Structure to Focus on Democratized Viewership

All India Radio (AIR) has recently organized the Sardar Patel Memorial Lecture 2017, as a mark of respect to Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, India’s first minister of information and broadcasting. Addressing the audience in this annual lecture Smriti Zubin Irani, minister for information and broadcasting and textiles emphasized on the need of audience measurement system to be democratic. The model structure of broadcasting should focus on democratized viewership. This should be based on an accurate measurement system that reflects the strength of regional languages, varied tastes of viewers/consumers and bridges the divide on issues related to agenda setting, creative content, and revenue between the mainstream and regional platforms.

Elaborating further, Irani points out that while the broadcasting sector is based on business propositions and technological up-gradation, the Mann ki Baat program of the Prime Minister is an ideal example of how a technology platform blended the PM’s message with citizen understanding and awareness of the issues highlighted by him in each episode.

Highlighting the fulcrum strength of ministry, Irani stated that the information service officers profile would be strengthened in the future by giving them skill sets along with an integrated administrative exposure so as to enable them to serve policy and programs of the people through the medium of information. This would be along the lines of Sardar Patel’s vision of creating a steel frame to serve the people through the channel of information dissemination.