PJAEE, 17(6) (2020)

A STUDY ABOUT THE POPULARITY OF OLD ICONIC PROGRAMME OF CHANNEL AMONG THE YOUTH DURING THE COVID-19 LOCKDOWAN DAYS. MS.SHAIL MADHUR JASROTIA1, Ms.AMANINDER KAUR2 1Assistant professor,UIMS,Chandigarh university, Punjab, 2Assistant professor,UIMS,Chandigarh university, Punjab, India

MS.SHAIL MADHUR JASROTIA1, Ms.AMANINDER KAUR2, A Study About The Popularity Of Old Iconic Programme Of Doordarshan Channel Among The Youth During The Covid-19 Lockdowan Days– Palarch’s Journal of Archaeology of Egypt/Egyptology 17(6) (2020), ISSN 1567-214X.

ABSTRACT

The invention of Doordarshan was proved revolutionary in the Indian population. Since the Doordarshan was invented, the only national broadcast channel in India, in 1984 with appearance of various soap opera and mythological shows were the enormous effect on the audience. These shows were the literary reconstruction in those days which was very popular among the people. The paper attempt to find the popularity of Doordarshan during the lockdown day’s .because ministry of information and broadcasting took the initiative to broadcast the old iconic programme these days for the Indian population. The researcher applied survey method to examine the popularity of these shows among the youth. Also find out the role of social media for boosting up the curiosity for the same in youth.

INTRODUCTION

The year 2020 started off with the outbreak of novel Corona virus pandemic and has put the whole world on pause. People are sacred, panicking, daily life is disrupted, economy is down and future is uncertain. Every single corner of this planet is affected and so is India. It has affected almost every single industry and business in India. The whole world is in lockdown mode. People, vehicles every single movement and activity is on hold. Every single business sector is stagnant, newspapers are not being printed and no magazines are there on the stalls. The 24X7 private general entertainment channels are facing trouble as they have no new episodes to run. But amid all this, Doordarshan is topping the charts. Where almost every private entertainment channel is facing challenges in delivering fresh content and is seeking different ways to stay connected to their audience, Doordarshan is winning the hearts again by re-telecasting its popular mythological programs like Ramayan, Mahabharatalong with their other famous programs. Maximum eyes these days are glued to DD National for watching Ramayan and Mahabharat.

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Almost forgotten Doordarshan came back into limelight when Information and Broadcasting Ministry took to twitter and announced to re-telecast popular mythology shows on Doordarshan. The TV buff could not keep calm and with the broadcast of first episode Ramayan became the top trends on Twitter. Social media was flooded with picture of people watching Ramayan. The iconic shows like Mahabharat and Ramayan are enjoying massive love and appreciation from the audience. In this hard time DD’s programs have emerged as a ray of hope. Where other TV channels are running short of fresh content DD’s old shows are winning hearts.With an explosion in the number of TV channels after privatization in India, Doordarshan somewhere down the lane lost its connectivity with audience. Various other private entertainment channels captured the market and provided audience with ample of content to watch. Very soon the memories associated with DD faded away and DD could not manage to entertain the audience same way. But the recent lockdown brought DD back. As people stayed indoors during a nationwide lockdown to fight against the coronavirus pandemic DD broke its own record by achieving highest viewership.According to Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) data, Doordarshan in 13th and 14th week of the year received maximum viewership and became most watched TV channel leaving all other private channels behin. As per the BARC data from during week 13 and week 14DD national had received 1.5 and 1.9 billion viewership figures respectively which is the highest viewership figures in the channel's long history. According to BARC since 2015 the above figures are the highest especially whenit comes to GEC programs.Ever since re-telecast of these two iconic programs has started amid this lockdown situation DD is touching all the highest marks in TRP history. In terms of shows,Ramayan and Mahabharat are topping the charts too with 61 million and 16 million impressions during 14th week. In urban areas where majority population is heading towards OTT platforms DD National managed to get 1.09 billion impressions weekly. Apart from Ramayan and Mahabharat many other DD programs are being re-telecasted. Shows like Circus, ByomkeshBakshi, Shaktimaan are in the list. Reviewing the results of DD re-telecasting old programs other entertainment channels are following the same route to reach audiences.

Amid this lockdown where general entertainment channels are scratching their heads to save and entertain the audience, DD has made an attempt to make life easier at home by bringing back their old programs. The popularity of DD’s programs is elevating and is grabbing attention of those too who prefers OTT platforms over television.

Objectives

➢ To examine the popularity of old iconic serial of Doordarshan among the youth during the lockdown. ➢ To find out the role of social Media in boosting up the acceptance of Doordarshan programmes in youth.

Research Methodology

Research methodology is a way out to solve the research problem with a specific manner. Basically research methodology is a process to identified and analysis of the information which are required for the research problem and helps to solve in systematically way. In a study, the methodology segment helps the reader to critically access the authenticity and reliability of the paper.

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Researcher supports the survey method for the data collection to solve the research problem. The tool of the survey is questionnaires. The sample size of the questionnaires is 100 and the variables are youth in between the age of 16 to 28.The questions are open ended and close ended for the qualitative and quantitative data result.

Review of literature

India is country with religious faith and the mythology based show like and were the extraordinary popular while they are on airing. While the commercialisation of Doordarshan, Indian audience enjoy a new face of broadcasting like live cricket match, live election coverage, advent of satellite transmission. Basically with the satellite transformation gives the Doordarshan a new looks and can say it is reforming the Doordarshan with a new face. (ghose, 2005)

Television in India grows like a child. In the early age, antenna captures the signal and now set top box replaces the antenna. Indian television revolved around the 4C of television i.e. cricket crime cinema and celebrity. Indian television plays an integral role in representing and constructing Indian modernity. (Biswarup sen, 2014)

Nineteenth century renamed the television with screen of technology and screen revolution. In other words balaji telecast gave a big hike to television broadcasting. This era is all about the target audience. The entire broadcaster considered the audience choice and broadcast the entertaining stuff. (munshi, 2010 )

Indian television has made the transition from film to music, soap opera to games show instead of development and education. According to the objectives of broadcasting, recent scenario is different. Nowadays broadcasting is all about the entertainment. Even audience is demanding for the same. With the reference of audience interest, private channel are using this move to gain the more profit. Advertisement takes a place in private broadcasting because advertiser makes the profit for the particular channels. (datta, 2010).

Conceptual framework

The contriving of television was the outcome of combination of radio, motion pictures, photography and the electronic camera. But in the context of country like India, television is a medium for the education and social change. In the early years, it was used as an informative medium. In fact Doordarshan was using for the higher and secondary school education. With the years passing, the general service like krishi darshan was started under the guidance of ministry of information and broadcasting. This was a long and decisive step by the Doordarshan. After this, many Doordarshan kendres had been established by the MIB. In the Doordarshan’s development there were many phase like SITE experiment, INSAT-1A and INSAT-1B.But the most important is revenue. Besides these experiment, most important significant development was commercialised the Doordarshan and increased the entertainment programmes. Sponsored programme were proved the expansion of Doordarshan among the whole country. The commercialization in Doordarshan originates the various powerful serials like ramayan and mahabharat.In 1984,India’s first soap opera ‘hum log’ was introduced with the objectives of

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PJAEE, 17(6) (2020) exposing the various social issues.this serial enhanced the popularity and became the first choice of the audience.since then Doordarshan has been showing the sponsored serials in its National programme. Another serial ‘Buniyad’ was also a big hit. It’s proven that these entertaining serial gave the hike to Doordarshan viewership.

Data analysis and interpretation

The below given data indicated the interest of the respondent. The respondent are in between the age of 16 to 28.the data shows the youth perspectives about the Doordarshan channel content during the lockdown days.The responses of the question are below:-

1. Do you watch dd1 during lockdown days?

1 Response

27.2 no sometimes 71.8

2.Do you ever watch DD-1 before lockdown? response

44.7 YES 55.3 NO

3.Which program you like most on DD1.

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response Ramayan 1.9 mahabharat jungle book 6.8 1 2 2.9 circus 1.9 byomesh bakshi 0 chankya 14.6 news 53.4 shaktiman nothing 15.5 rangoli

4. How the Doordarshan programs help to entertain during the lockdown days. According to the respondent, Doordarshan programmes bring them in childhood days. And these programs are very inspirational, humour with original concept.

5.What is the inspiration of watching old iconic serials of DD national?

response

12 8 social Media meme 10 peer pressure 60 entertainment 10 to get pass the time intersting content

6.Do you agree that the Doordarshan initiative helpful in social distancing?

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Response

15.5

YES NO 84.5

7.Have you heard about "India watches DD, India fights Corona".

Response

25.20% 35.90% Yes NO

38.80% Maybe

8.Do you think that this initiative may continue after the lockdown?

Response

37.9 47.7 YES NO

14.6 MAYBE

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9.Do you know the main objective of the Ministry of broadcasting behind? if yes, please explain. Many of the respondents have no idea about the any objective of MIB.and only 30 % are saying that it is just for the enhancing the TRP the DD1 as it is lacking from many years due to private channels. response

20% YES 80% NO

Conclusion

The initiative of Ministry of information and broadcasting has proved fruitful during the lockdown days. As the whole country has stopped like a vehicle, nothing new all around the surroundings. Sometimes, it is like the COVID-19 gives a chance to every person to spend much time with the family. With the understanding of this perspective doordarshan has started various programmes for the entertainment of the audience. There are many research report shows that in only 3 weeks TRP of doordarshan programme have rapidly increased. With the reference of respondent the only reason of this popularity is “Ramayana” show. Out of 100 respondent, 70 % give the credit to this show for enhance admiring of doordarshan shows during lockdown. Most of the youth relate this with the childhood memories. Doordarshan channel is not much in advertising but social media plays an integral role to frame this in the mind of the youth. Various social media platform create the meme on this move of channel. And researcher claims that it is main reason of fermented the curiosity among them. In the opinion of youth that these programmes are very inspirational and humour with original concept as compared to the private channels. Private channels are more into the profit only. The content of those channels are not that much satisfactory as compared to doordarshan programme during lockdown days. Moreover doordarshan channel are access able so it is very helpful for every class of the society. It helps a lot to for time pass during lockdown. And youth get to know about our history through these mythological shows.the respondents are contented that they get to know about new things that how the old iconic programs were broadcasting and which kind of technologies were used. It is examine by the researcher that the youth have always read ramayana in books but watching it as a show increases their knowledge and it is a good way of time spending during these days which also brings whole family together. The Channel is showing something productive which is helping the viewers to acquire or retain the knowledge from the series of Mahabharata and Ramayana also its taking classes to somewhere fill the loss of the youth. There was an era when streets where empty as Ramayan and Mahabharat

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PJAEE, 17(6) (2020) were telecast on DD.Now to keep the streets empty again they have come, according to the respondent this is the best source to keep us entertained at the same time engaged. For so many 90's or before 90's people it brings their past memories relive and for the current generation it creates curiosity in their mind to know about the old technology and content. In this case,MIB took this step for the improve the lockdown situation. Many of the respondents have idea about this objective of ministry of information and broadcasting. So that everyone could gain knowledge from these shows and could do something productive during the free time of social distancing. The government starts broadcasting t old mythological programs to tell the population about the patience and hard work which is needed in this lockdown time. The another perspective of youth is that it is helpful to make people aware about history and lockdown can be looked as the best time to cultivate heritage in younger generation. On the other hand the Channel is taking the classes of the students which is a commendable initiative by the doordarshan itself. Doordarshan is widely telecasted channel and that to free of cost; there it can reach everyone around India, so telecasting something on Doordarshan will make sure the presence of more number of people in front of television screen.

Reference

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