English Entertainment
BBC World presents ‘India Rising’ in February
MUMBAI: BBC World Service, the radio arm of BBC Worldwide kicks of its integrated India Rising season of special programming from 3 to 11 February. Starting with a four part documentary series ‘India Rising’ by George Arney, the season aims to get to the heart of contemporary India with key programmes broadcast from the country’s political, cultural, economic, religious, cultural and scientific heartland.
The coverage will be informed by the findings of a special GlobeScan Survey about political power, corruption, the caste system, gender roles, religion and society.
Highlights of the season include:
Monday 5 February
India Rising (9.05-9.30am)
Running throughout the week, documentary series India Rising explores the stereotypes about burgeoning India, addressing issues of caste, religion and the role of women. George Arney talks to consumer and retail expert Preeti Reddy about the people and places benefiting from the country’s rise as a global economic power.
Culture Shock (9.30-10.00am)
The weekly magazine programme that explores new trends looks at the “Bollywoodisation” of Indian media. It examines the way stars can become newscasters on TV news channels purely to promote their films.
Outlook (Monday-Friday, 10.00-11.00am)
Daily human interest magazine programme Outlook gives voice to a wide range of Indian citizens. It will feature the climax of the Young Indian Entrepreneur Of The Year, a high profile event involving more than 1,000 aspiring entrepreneurs. BBC World Service has been tracking the contest from the start.
Health Check (12.30-1.00pm)
Health Check visits India’s premier health institute, the All India Institute Of Medical Sciences, to report on the state of Indian healthcare.
Tuesday 6 February
India Rising (9.05-9.30am)
In Bihar the pace of growth has been slow and parts of the state have been untouched by development. But, even here, there are signs of hope. George Arney talks to Alka Chaudhary of the Confederation Of Indian Industry who is in charge of the Bihar Development Initiative.
The Word (9.30-10.00am)
The weekly programme that explores books and writing visits the Calcutta Book Fair, one of the world’s biggest book events.
Digital Planet (12.30-1.00pm)
This weekly technology programme comes from Calcutta. The city is home to an increasing number of software companies, which operate within an intriguing employment climate in the Communist-run state of West Bengal.
Wednesday 7 February
India Rising (9.05-9.30am)
In India, more people have access to a TV than a flush toilet. In the last 15 years there’s been a huge expansion in the number of TV channels and internet use is soaring. George Arney looks at the impact on Indian identity and culture.
Discovery (12.30-1.00pm)
In the first of a four-part series on the role of science and technology in Indian society, Geoff Watts talks to leading scientists, including the President of India, about science education and what India needs to do to make the biggest possible global impact.
On Screen (9.30-10.00am)
This weekly film magazine programme comes from three different centres of the Indian film industry: Mumbai, home of Bollywood movies; Chennai, base of the massive Tamil film industry; and Kerala, a city with a rich film tradition.
Thursday 8 February
India Rising (9.05-9.30am)
George Arney asks if upheaval and tension is inevitable as India embarks on a path of rapid industrialisation. He talks to Amitabh Behar, Executive Director of the National Centre for Advocacy Studies.
The Beat (9.30-10.00am)
The weekly programme exploring global popular music reflects India’s contemporary music scene which goes beyond Bollywood and Yogic classical music to embrace rock and pop.
Friday 9 February
Close Up (9.30-10.00am)
Lucy Duran travels across India and discovers the country’s rich variety of music. She is joined on her journey by Indian sitar player Viram Jasani, who played the tabla drums on Led Zeppelin’s first album. He is now a director of Asian Music Circuit, the leading promoter of Indian music in the UK.
Science In Action (12.30-1.00pm)
Science In Action comes from The Indian Science Institute in India’s science capital Bangalore.
Saturday 10 February
Feluda: The Golden Fortress (8.00-9.00pm)
BBC World Drama brings Bollywood stars Rahul Bose and Anupam Kher to the airwaves in Satyajit Ray’s detective play. Ten-year-old Mukul has started having vivid dreams of what he presumes to be a past life. Here, within sight of a golden fortress, he lived in a house with gold and jewels buried under the floor. A para psychologist takes the boy off to Rajasthan, hoping to retrieve his memories and the hidden treasure. But nefarious scoundrels are also on the boy’s trail and it’s a race to see if Feluda and co will get to the boy in time.
The Ticket (7.05-8.00pm)
The weekly arts and culture magazine looks at what’s hot and happening in India, from theatre and cinema to the revival of Indian classical music.
Sunday 11 February
India – Brother Or Bully? (1.00-2.00pm)
This debate will link commentators in India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal. To most of the world India is an emerging power, a secular democracy, a nation of one-billion aspirants. But what do its neighbours think?
A dedicated India Rising website, bbcnews.com/india goes live on Monday 22 January 2007.
UK: The aerial is losing its grip. As broadband becomes the default way Britons watch television, the UK is edging towards a decisive, and divisive, question: should Freeview be switched off by 2034? The issue, highlighted in reporting by The Guardian, has exposed deep fault lines over access, affordability and the future of public service broadcasting.
For nearly 25 years, Freeview has delivered free-to-air television from the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 to almost every corner of the country. Even now, it remains the UK’s largest TV platform, used in more than 16m homes and on around 10m main household sets. Yet the same broadcasters that built it are now pressing for its closure within eight years.
Their case rests on a structural shift in viewing. Smart TVs, superfast broadband and the Netflix-led streaming boom have pulled audiences online. Advertising economics have followed. By 2034, the number of homes using Freeview as their main TV set is forecast to fall from a peak of almost 12m in 2012 to fewer than 2m, making digital terrestrial television, or DTT, increasingly costly to sustain.
But critics say the rush to switch off risks abandoning those least able, or least willing, to move online.
“I don’t want to be choosing apps and making new accounts,” says Lynette, 80, from Kent. “It is time-consuming and irritating trying to work out where I want to be, to remember the sequence of clicks, with hieroglyphics instead of words. If I make a mistake I have to start again.”
Lynette is among nearly 100,000 people who have signed a “save Freeview” petition launched by campaign group Silver Voices. She fears the government is about to “take [Freeview] away from me and others who either don’t like, can’t afford, or can’t use online versions”.
Official figures underline the fault lines. A report commissioned by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport estimates that by 2035, 1.8m homes will still depend on Freeview. Ofcom’s analysis shows those households are more likely to be disabled, older, living alone, female, and based in the north of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Freeview is owned by the public service broadcasters through Everyone TV, which also operates Freesat and the newer streaming platform Freely. After two years of review, DCMS is expected to set out its position soon, drawing on three options proposed by Ofcom: a costly upgrade of Freeview’s ageing technology; maintaining a bare-bones service with only core PSB channels; or a full switch-off during the 2030s.
The broadcasters have rallied behind the third option. They argue that 2034 is the logical cut-off, when transmission contracts with network operator Arqiva expire. By then, they say, the cost of broadcasting to a dwindling audience will far outweigh the returns from TV advertising.
Ofcom agrees a crunch point is approaching. In July, the regulator warned of a “tipping point” within the next few years, after which it will no longer be commercially viable for broadcasters to carry the costs of DTT.
Others see risks beyond economics. Questions remain over whether internet TV can reliably deliver emergency broadcasts, such as the daily Covid updates, in the way that universally available DTT can. The UK radio industry has also warned that an internet-only future for TV could push up distribution costs and force some radio stations off air if PSBs no longer share Arqiva’s mast network.
“It is a political hot potato,” says Dennis Reed, founder of Silver Voices, who says he has “dissociated” his organisation from the government’s stakeholder forum, which he believes is “heavily biased” towards streaming.
The Future TV Taskforce, representing the PSBs, counters that moving online could “close the digital divide once and for all”. “We want to be able to plan to ensure that no one is left behind,” a spokesperson says, adding that rising DTT costs could otherwise mean cuts to programme budgets.
The numbers show the scale of the challenge. Of the 1.8m Freeview-dependent homes projected for 2035, around 1.1m are expected to have broadband but not use it for TV. The remaining 700,000 are forecast to lack a broadband connection altogether.
Veterans of the analogue switch-off, completed in 2012 after 76 years, recall similar fears of “TV blackout chaos”. Around 6 per cent of households were labelled “digital refuseniks”, yet a targeted help scheme and a national campaign, fronted by a robot called Digit Al voiced by Matt Lucas, delivered a largely smooth transition.
This time, the BBC is less keen to foot the bill. Tim Davie, the outgoing director general, has said the corporation should not fund a comparable support programme for a Freeview switch-off.
Research for Sky by Oliver & Ohlbaum suggests that with early awareness campaigns and digital inclusion measures, only about 330,000 households would ultimately need hands-on help ahead of a 2034 shutdown.
Meanwhile, viewing habits continue to fragment. Audience body Barb says 7 per cent of UK households no longer own a TV set, choosing to watch on other devices. In December, YouTube overtook the BBC’s combined channels in total UK viewing across TVs, smartphones and tablets, albeit measured at a minimum of three minutes.
That shift may accelerate. YouTube has recently blocked Barb and its partner Kantar from accessing viewing session data, limiting transparency just as online platforms consolidate power.
“When the government chose British Satellite Broadcasting as the ‘winner’ in satellite TV it was Rupert Murdoch’s Sky instead that came out on top,” says a senior TV executive quoted by The Guardian. “There already is such an outsider ready to be the winner in the transition to internet TV; it is YouTube.”
Freeview’s future now hangs on a familiar British dilemma: modernise fast and risk exclusion, or protect universality and pay the price. Either way, the aerial’s days as king of the living room look numbered.
