Mass media in India, especially news media, are undergoing significant changes in the current liberalised environment. To understand these changes, it is useful to examine the road traversed so far. This requires looking at media in two phases of India's history - pre-colonial and post-colonial. Each medium has taken its own evolutionary path.

Compared with many other developing countries, the Indian press has flourished since independence and exercises a large degree of independence. In 2001, India had 45,974 newspapers, including 5364 daily newspapers published in over 100 languages. The largest number of newspapers were published in Hindi (20,589), followed by English (7,596), Marathi (2,943), Urdu (2,906), Bengali (2,741), Gujarati (2,215), Tamil (2,119), Kannada (1,816), Malayalam(1,505) and Telugu (1,289). The Hindi daily press has a circulation of over 23 million copies, followed by English with over 8 million copies. There are several major publishing groups in India, the most prominent among them being the Times of India Group, the Indian Express Group, the Hindustan Times Group, The Hindu group, the Anandabazar Patrika Group, the MalayalaManorama Group (Malalaya Manorama is the largest circulated daily newspaper in India), the Sahara group, the Bhaskar group, and the Jagran group.

India has more than forty domestic news agencies. The Express News Service, the Press Trust of India, and the United News of India are among the major news agencies.

The National and the English press;The Hindu and Indian Express ; Times of India and The Statesman; India Today and Outlook; Pothan Joseph and G Kasturi; N Ram and Vinod Mehta; The Hoot and [1] are not contrasts but a sampling of the range that needs to be covered here.

Colonial journalism

William Bolts, an ex-employee of the British East India Company attempted to start the first newspaper in India in 1776. Bolts had to beat a retreat under the disapproving gaze of the Court of Directors of the Company.

Bengal

The Hickey's Bengal Gazette or the Calcutta General Advertiser was started by James Augustus Hickey in 1780. The Gazette, a two-sheet newspaper, specialised in writing on the private lives of the Sahibs of the Company. He dared even to mount scurrillious attacks on the Governor-General, Warren Hastings', wife, which soon landed "the late printer to the Honourable Company" in trouble.

Hickey was sentenced to a 4 months jail term and Rs.500 fine, which did not deter him. After a bitter attack on the Governor-General and the Chief Justice, Hickey was sentenced to one year in prison and fined Rs.5,000, which finally drove him to penury. These were the first tentative steps of journalism in India.

Calcutta

B.Messink and Peter Reed were pliant publishers of the India Gazette, unlike their infamous predecessor. The colonial establishment started the Calcutta Gazette. It was followed by another private initiative the Bengal Journal. The Oriental Magazine of Calcutta Amusement, a monthly magazine made it four weekly newspapers and one monthly magazine published from Calcutta, now Kolkata.

Madras (Chennai)

The Madras Courier was started in 1785 in the southern stronghold of Madras, which is now called Chennai. Richard Johnson, its founder, was a government printer. Madras got its second newspaper when, in 1791, Hugh Boyd, who was the editor of the Courier quit and founded the Hurkaru. Tragically for the paper, it ceased publication when Boyd died within a year of its founding.

It was only in 1795 that competitors to the Courier emerged with the founding of the Madras Gazette followed by the India Herald. The latter was an "unauthorised" publication, which led to the deportation of its founder Humphreys. The Madras Courier was designated the purveyor of official information in the Presidency.

In 1878, The Hindu was founded, and played a vital role in promoting the cause of Indian independence from the colonial yoke. It's founder, Kasturi Ranga Iyengar, was a lawyer, and his son, K Srinivasan assumed editorship of this pioneering newspaper during for the first half of the 20th century. Today this paper enjoys the highest circulation in South India, and is among the top five nationally.

Bombay

Bombay, now Mumbai, surprisingly was a late starter - The Bombay Herald came into existence in 1789. Significantly, a year later a paper called the Courier started carrying advertisements in Gujarati.

The first media merger of sorts: The Bombay Gazette, which was started in 1791, merged with the Bombay Herald the following year. Like the Madras Courier, this new entity was recognised as the publication to carry "official notifications and advertisements".

'A Chronicle of Media and the State', by Jeebesh Bagchi in the Sarai Reader 2001 is a handy timeline on the role of the state in the development of media in India for more than a century.

Bagchi divides the timeline into three 'ages'. The Age of Formulation, which starts with the Indian Telegraph Act in 1885 and ends with the Report of the Sub-Committee on Communication, National Planning Committee in 1948.

Post colonial journalism

The Age of Consolidation that follows stretches from 1951, with the extension of the Indian Telegraph Act to the whole of India and ends with the promulgation of the "Indecent Representation of Women (Prohibition) Act" in 1985. The current age is the Age of Uncertainty, which began in 1989 with the introduction of the Prasar Bharati (Broadcasting Corporation of India) Bill.

Two News Agencies

Press Trust of India (PTI) and United News of India (UNI) are the two primary Indian news agencies. The former was formed after the it took over the operations of the Associated Press of India and the Indian operations of Reuters soon after independence on August 27, 1947. PTI is a non-profit cooperative of the Indian newspapers. UNI began its operations on March 21, 1961, though it was registered as a company in 1959 itself.

Reference

J. Natarajan, History of Indian Journalism in Part II of the Report of the Press Commission - is an excellent source.

Popular publications in urban India in 2005

• Aikya (Leading Marathi daily from Satara)
• Dainik Bhaskar (Hindi daily) 22.5 million readers (NRS 2005)
• Malayala Manorama (Malayalam daily)
• Mathrubhumi ([2] daily)
• Dainik Jagran (Hindi daily) 19.2 million readers (IRS 2005)
• The Times of India (English daily) 7.05 million readers (IRS 2005)
• Amar Ujala (Hindi daily)
• Anandabazar patrika (Bengali daily)
• Grihshobha (Hindi)
• Eenadu (Telugu daily)
• Lokmat (Hindi daily)
• India Today (weekly; Hindi edition most popular)
• Sambhaav (Gujarati daily) Gujarat Samachar (Gujarati daily)
• Daily Thanthi (Tamil daily with 14 editions and a circulation of 790,900)

Note : NRS 2005 results do not cover the malayala newspapers because the findings are not consistent with the overall trends and may be disputed. Still, upto 2004 the malayala dailies figured routinely among topmost popular publications in India. NRS - National Redearship Survey. IRS (Indian Readership Survey) is another such monitoring survey, which doesn't always agree with NRS.

Popular English dailies in urban India in 2003

• The Times of India
• Hindustan Times
• The Hindu
• The Telegraph
• Deccan Chronicle
• The Asian Age
• The Economic Times
• The New Indian Express
• Mid-Day
• Deccan Herald
• Indian Express
• India today
• Outlook
• Sommelier India

Further information: News sources India