

How India's favorite TV show uses data to change the world - suprgeek
http://gigaom.com/cloud/how-indias-favorite-tv-show-uses-data-to-change-the-world/

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magic_haze
Off topic, but I find it extremely interesting that many Indian TV producers
are actually putting up full HD episodes of their shows up on youtube directly
(e.g., <https://www.youtube.com/user/StarWorldIndia>, which incidentally is a
subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation). A far cry from just a few
years back, when you couldn't even find them on public torrent trackers.

Does anyone know what the business plan here is (or is it just the fact that
the overwhelming majority of the population have access to cable television
and broadband speeds haven't caught up yet?)

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manaskarekar
I'm speculating here, but maybe it has to do with the disposable nature of
shows in India. Indian shows usually don't get sold as DVDs by the season. The
same episode will often be re-run later the same day and into the next week
until a new episode comes up.

The sheer number of episodes being churned out means extremely high
competition and the more the exposure to the show, the more the interest in
it.

I'm guessing this is just their way of locking in user interest so that they
do tune in to the new episode that gets broadcast.

Also, the Youtube India ad revenue could be significant given the sheer number
of eyeballs.

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magic_haze
But the thing is, all the points you make are equally applicable even for
US/European TV as well, and yet we have to put up with astonishingly shabby
ways to watch them. Even the BBC has all these restrictions around their
iplayer. Hulu was a good start, but the networks have consistently been
messing with it and now it is... meh. I've just given up trying to watch them.

What makes this strategy work for Indian TV, but not for others?

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manaskarekar
The selling DVDs part may be it. If it's always freely available on Youtube to
watch, why would anyone want to own DVDs?

Who knows?!

Edit: I just realized, India doesn't seem to have as much broadband internet
penetration as the rest of the world. Where as it most definitely has a very
high TV penetration.

Now, we see that in a lot of countries, USA for example, people are moving
away from TVs solely to video streaming.

So I guess my earlier speculation of high viewership on Youtube might actually
be completely wrong. It might be because the viewership on Youtube is low
enough not to affect the main ratings.

Maybe they will face the same problems as the rest of the world once broadband
becomes a bigger deal and a much larger percentage of people stop watching TV.

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solnyshok
Why would anyone want to own DVDs? And CDs. That's how I felt for the last 5
years, looking at the boxes of various physical media collecting dust in my
storage room. Thrown it away couple of months ago. Now looking at the books.
It might take more time, maybe 10 years, before they are gone too.

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alokm
Here's a list of episodes and issues covered

-Female foeticide in India

-Break the Silence- Child sexual abuse

-Marriage or Marketplace- Dowry system in India

-Every Life is Precious-Medical malpractice

-Intolerance to Love-Love marriages and Honor killings in India

-Persons with disabilities-Physical Disabilities

-Danger at home-Domestic Violence

-Poison on our Plate?-Pesticide poisoning and Organic farming

-Think before you Drink-Alcohol abuse

-Dignity for All-Casteism and Untouchability

-Sunset Years, Sunshine Life-Old age

-Every Drop Counts-Water crisis and Rainwater harvesting

-Idea of India-We The People

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deskamess
If you do happen to watch the sample episode, the main interview portion (2:00
on wards) is subtitled in English. The episode is about the caste system.

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jcfrei
yep, some quite insightful epsiodes in there. I would recommend anyone to
watch one of the latest episodes.

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anuraj
India is a subcontinent with several languages, ethnicities and social
realities. To say any one TV Program in a particular language is favorite in
India is not right. Each language has its own viewership and its own programs.
National media is almost absent in India.

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train_robber
The show is broadcast in 7 languages - English, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu,
Malayalam, Bengali and Marathi. I would say this is the more 'national' than
most of the other shows - the reach would be close to 80-90% of the population
atleast.

