“Too much media, too many opinions” or how the media freedom in India shakes its government?
India has nearly 832 TV channels which puts the country on leading information and broadcasting position worldwide. This status has been reached as a result of media reform and liberalization which has occurred after the Gulf war in 1991. The expansion has been mainly driven by both increasing demand for political news and analysis and market interests in the news area. Still, with the appearance of privatized commercial broadcasting, the perception of media equilibrium based on free expression has been vanished between private economic and national political struggles.
This June, the India’s federal police have raised financial investigation against the liberal NDTV network, the oldest local English-language broadcasting channel, after its direct media critics expressed towards Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
The investigation has been interpreted by the network as political assault on media freedom but the case has also reopened the debate on the huge amount of TV channels and their true effectiveness on covering the demands of India’s TV audience.
