Media competition in India
By Brian Micklethwait | 21 October 2005
I recommend this hymn of praise to the splendour of competition, in the Indian media, by Vir Sanghvi.
The general view among politicians is that the media are accountable to nobody. This is plain wrong. Individual journalists are constantly being held accountable by editors and most newspapers are far more concerned about accuracy in reporting than they were, say, ten years ago.The reason for this is simple enough: competition.
If people stop believing you, then any media outlet (print, radio, TV, internet etc) is dead. Take our own paper. Ten years ago, the HT's position in Delhi was unassailable. But today, with newspaper price wars and the competition with TV and the internet, we have to consciously strive to hang on to our readers. The latest readership surveys may say that we have 3.4 lakh more readers than The Times of India (that's the IRS result; according to NRS we are 3.98 lakh ahead) but we know that it is a damn close run thing. A few months of sloppy reporting and readers will switch papers.
That's a few acronyms that not everyone will be sure about, but the underlying message, about the position of the HT (Hindustani Times) in particular and the media in India generally, is that they are in good shape, thanks to competition.
Even better are the comments that Amit Varma offers about this "excellent article". Varma agrees with Sanghvi about the benefits of competition...
...Sanghvi argues that the state of the Indian media is better than ever before, and will improve as competition increases and readers are empowered with more choice.
Varma then goes further, taking the argument straight to the territory staked out at this blog:
I agree. And that's precisely why I favour the unhindered entry of foreign media into India.
Foreign competition, in other words, is just as big a stimulus to excellence and creativity in the media as it is in other businesses. Let us hope that other Asian countries may one day act on this message also.