Transcript BRICS- Hyderabad

Hyderabad in Focus
Presented by
Dr G Naga Mallika
EFLU
Introduction
 Hyderabad, a second tier metro in the new state of
Telangana in southern India.
 Population of the total metropolitan city is 9.1 million
approximately (2013)
 A multi-lingual and multi-cultural city, with Telugu
(state language), Hindi and Urdu predominantly
spoken apart from English.
Print media in Hyderabad
 Houses English, Telugu, Urdu and Hindi media.
 Nearly 7 to 8 Telugu newspapers (plus local ones) and
4 to 5 Telugu weekly magazines published from the
city.
 Five to 6 English newspapers including small ones.
 Six Urdu newspapers and two Hindi newspapers.
 Apart from this, six private FM channels and All India
Radio.
Television
 Nearly 80 Telugu channels including News,
Entertainment, and specialised channels.
 Includes Doordarshan as well as Urdu channels.
 Some English channels dubbed into Telugu ( Pogo,
Disney, National Geographic and History channels).
 Number of news channels (Telugu) most, when
compared to other states, at around 20. Many of them
carry special bulletins in English and Urdu.
Online
 Online media nebulous and emerging. Niche genres
yet to make their presence as most popular websites
are those hosted by the newspaper organisations and
those of B2B and B2C.
 Software companies that offer content to other
business entities as well as for commercial purposes
are popular.
 Other websites that are commonly found are extensions of
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print versions of news dailies. All newspapers have online
versions.
Online Telugu newspapers like Eenadu and Andhra Jyothi
very popular with NRIs or Non Resident Indians.
Some Urdu newspapers like Siasat and Rehnuma-e-Deccan
also popular in the Middle east countries, including the
online versions.
An independent news website is a new phenomenon and a
niche area not very popular in Telugu.
There are a couple of such websites from Hyderabad.
 For this study, the electronic (television) and the
online media are being combined to compare with the
traditional print media.
 50 journalists across all media (print, electronic and
online) from the city have been the respondents for
the study.
 This is a work in progress and so I will place before you
certain broad observations of the profile of
journalists, in the preliminary analysis of the data
collected.
Respondents
 Of the 50 respondents, 27 were male while 23 were
female.
 26 respondents from the print media (English, Telugu
and Hindi)
 24 from electronic and online media. ( 20+4)
 English newspapers :
 The Hindu (national news daily)
 Times of India ( national news daily)
 Deccan Chronicle( regional)
 Hans India ( regional)
 Metro India ( local)
 Telugu newspapers:
- Eenadu
- Andhra Prabha
- Sakshi
-Namaste Telangana
-Andhra Jyothi
-Andhra Bhoomi
 Hindi newspaper
 Vishwas Daily
 Television channels : All are news channels
-N TV
-Mahaa TV
-TV 9
-CVR TV
-T news
-ABN Andhra Jyothi
-ETV
 Online media chosen for the study:
 Serendipity Authors and Editors
 And Beyond
 Telugutv.info
 No specific news portals that concentrate on the ‘latest
news’.
Profiles of Online Media
 Telugutv.info is a portal run by a veteran print journalist,
having worked with both print and broadcast media for
more than two decades. Telugutv.info is a portal that
carries news analysis, news related to the Telugu news
channels and news related to them.
 Serendipity authors and Editors is an up-start portal that
focuses on writing and other related skills. They have a
small component where they air ‘latest news’ but that is
occasional.
 The same can also be attributed to the site andbeyond.com.
Number of employees
 While the television channels employ nearly 300 to
400 journalists and non journalists, the online media
have a maximum of four to five people to run the show.
 Online websites are usually managed by the owner
himself/herself, with a designer and a content writer.
 Most of them began their websites in the last five to
ten years.
Ownership
 Cross media ownership is a common phenomenon in
Indian media.
 There are dailies, television channels and websites
owned by the same person, mostly business
organisations/individuals, real estate barons, and
political parties, which make the channels a business
enterprise than a journalistic endeavour.
Content
 Any story written for the print media is also uploaded
on the website of that online newspaper, straight.
 For example, Eenadu is a newspaper, while ETV is a
television channel from the same group, while
Eenadu’s online version is also available.
 The news that is printed in the newspaper is
simultaneously uploaded onto the online version.
 The same news story is also used for the television
channels, depending on the suitability of the story.
 As stated earlier, this is one of the reasons that
independent news websites are few in Telugu media.
 Personal blogs are popular amongst journalists, where
news on journalists, including gossip is covered.
Ofcourse, under pseudonyms.
Gender
 The sample has 36 males and 14 female journalists.
 Women journalists are found more in the English
media than in Telugu media.
 For instance, English newspapers have an almost equal
representation of both male and female journalists
(8:6) while in the Telugu media the ratio of female to
male is almost 1:3 at 8 and 28.
 Reporters were generally male until the late nineties,
while female journalists preferred the desk.
 The increase in the number of media outlets,
especially in television, in the 2000s, led to a
proliferation of young girls getting into the profession.
Still, one finds that a majority of them are in the lower
rungs of the ladder than in senior positions.
 The number of females compared to men is relatively
low in the long run. The factors of personal
commitments, odd timings are generally the reasons
for women not continuing for long in the electronic
media.
 However, one can find many of the girls in the online
websites, opting for positions in websites, where the
timing is not as erratic as that of print and electronic
media.
 However, such jobs are limited to those with a good
knowledge of English writing skills.
Age & Education
 While the senior positions are with men in their fifties,
middle level journalists are in the age group of 30-39,
while the junior level is below 30.
 Online media has journalists in the youngest age
group, while electronic media has more number in the
middle level. However, they are equally divided across
all age groups in the print media.
 Among the 26 online journalists (23 Electronic Media,
3 Web) 15 of them possess a Masters in Journalism
while others have various other specialisations.
Social class
 Of the entire sample, 8 did not respond. It could be
due to the inappropriate choices specified or by
choice.
 The urban/ farm workers choice does not quite reflect
the Indian social class background.
 The journalists with urban background are quite
distinct from those with the rural background. Choice
of media, and their jobs are dependent on their
background. Clubbing the two together could lead to a
distortion of the data or might be inadequate for a
proper analysis.
 Majority (21) had both parents as urban and/or farm
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workers
9 had one parent with high education
9 had both parents as highly educated but not
journalists
3 of them had one parent as a journalist
None of the respondents had both parents as
journalists
Other respondents had parents as businessmen, army,
home makers, etc. (4)
Specialisation in media
 Specialisation is not encouraged as most media expect
journalists to multitask initially. So we find that many
of the youngsters multitask. Computerisation in the
nineties lead to this attitude.
 It is ironical that although the number of publications
are on the increase, there has also been an increase in
the number of lay offs. This has also been one of the
reasons why many journalists do more than one work
assigned to them.
 From the total 50 respondents we received 56
responses (most extra beats were political).
 A significant representation of the views of their
specialization was as "administrative", "political
journalism", "different".
 Both the respondents in online and traditional media
were specialists in the field of political journalism
predominantly.
Permanence of employment
 Majority of journalists are employed full time (31).
There are several more in the electronic/ online media
(17), than in traditional (14).
 In turn, working under a long term contract is more in
traditional media (6) which is a relatively new
phenomenon.
Average monthly income
 Majority of the electronic/online media persons (7)
earn in the range of Rs 60,000 (735 Euros or 1000 USD)
to Rs 70,000 (856 Euros or 1166 USD).
 Majority of traditional media persons (10) earn in the
range of Rs 20,000 (245 Euros or 333USD) to Rs 30,000
(367 Euros or 500 USD).
 While the range at the entry level is between 200 to
350 Euros, at the senior levels, it goes up to 850 Euros.
 Compared to other industries in India, the average
monthly income falls in the middle income to high
middle income.
 Traditionally, pay in media has been very poor, way
below an average man’s earnings. This has changed
after the proliferation of the media business in the last
twenty years.
 The change from permanent jobs to contract jobs has
also facilitated increase in pay.
Monthly income sufficient?
 It is interesting to note that a majority (28) think that
they are worth more.
 This is also an indication of the fact that there is a
difference between sufficiency and self worth, a
change in attitude in the post liberalised India.
Second job
 Doing a second job while in a permanent position is
not possible in India.
 This also is the same for contract jobs.
 Only those who are not full time in a job handle two
jobs, which is rare.
 These are some of the observations from the data
collected.
Thank you