We all must remember the time when we had only one channel to watch that is Doordarshan, a government controlled TV channel. At that time, we had no choice as to what to watch. We had to watch what was aired on the channel. Though there were and still are many good programs presented on this channel but most of time we have less choice. One can say that a great deal of information and social awareness was there but variety was missing.
Doordarshan`s monopoly was broken in 1992, when private television channels infiltrated into the Indian boundaries through CNN, Star Plus and Zee TV, and entertain the viewers as much as possible. In the beginning of 1990s, the private channels offered only entertainment programmes, which included family drama, comedy serials, children programmes, cartoons, movies, talk shows, recipe shows, musical concerts, non-fiction programmes etc. Now the television industry becomes more specific. In this competitive market, channels are targeting specific viewers. News channels attract more viewers beyond their target by producing interactive and interesting programmes. Every channel needs to do an extensive research on different concepts and different themes to attract more viewers and in the same time more advertisers. With increased consumer preference for news programmes, television news channels have grown faster than other niche channels.
 This emerging media powerhouse provided prime time television content to almost all leading satellite channels in India including BBC, Star Plus, Sony Entertainment Television, Zee TV, MTV and Discovery Channel. News channels are booming just like sky as the limit. Those days are not far away, when we will get satellite news channel for every major city in India. Staying in abroad, we can update ourselves about all the happening of our hometown. Today we have almost more than three channels in each different Indian language and about 100 channels are still waiting to be launched. This realty tells us the story of how Indian audience has adapted to this change. With the decreasing price of making a TV channel and lot of easy help available for the people, more and more people are entering into this venture.
In the next few years, one might find it more difficult to decide which channel to watch. Today there are channels in every segment like music, entertainment, documentary, news, education, spiritual, sports, comedy, regional and many others. Now we can say that Indians are entering in to a world of the TV channels where people have lot and lot of variety to watch.
Indian Entertainment Channels
There are a number of entertainment channels today and more are yet to come up. Private entertainment channels are the most sought after channels in every household n India as they cater to a large number of viewer ships. Entertainment channels provide entertainment and fun with the help of a mix of their daily soaps, comedy shows, movies, songs and the like.
Indian Documentary Channels
Gone are the days, when DD was the only channel that was viewed, along with its various documentaries. But now with so many channels spearing up, the Indian television has opened up the doors to much lucrative and entertaining content, rather than more educative ones. The need of many educative channels was felt and thus, the various Indian documentary channels have sprung up, one after the other. Apart from providing educative value, they are also coupled with a lot of interesting documentaries, for the viewers to get glued to them.
Indian News Channels
News channels have suddenly become a hot property. All major television broadcasters are including at least one news channel to their bouquet. At this stage, newsgathering is a major task for the 24-hour news channels. To cater this task, the emerging electronic channels have always made an attempt to cover all the incidents irrespective of position, location and time. These channels not only revolutionized the concept of news on Indian television but also changed the news formats.
Indian Sports Channels
When the topic goes about Sports in India, one thing is sure - Sports is considered as a religion here! Therefore it is no wonder that various sports channels have sprung up, from nowhere and are going out of their way to outbid and out bleed each other. Indian avid sports fans can gorge on a scrumptious platter of sports channels spread before them. Thus, the traditional market kings ESPN-STAR, and DD Sports do have some new challengers.
Indian Regional Channels
Rising advertising revenues and increasing numbers of viewers have provided the drive for many big players to enter into the business. Some regional media leaders like ETV, Sun TV, Asianet have a strong grip over the regional market. These regional channels cover the entire spectrum of genre with specific programs on lifestyle, fashion, food, shopping, health and fitness, sports, education, career and city issues, besides giving user-friendly information on traffic updates, city events, train and air timings, etc.
Indian Animation Channels
India as a market has many children`s animation channels that offer a lot of new content every day. Cartoon Network was the only animation channel, but now almost all Indian TV channels have at least two hours slot for animation programmes/films. Animated ad films such as All-out commercials are also picking up momentum fast, on all the TV channels. But apart from all these, the new age different animation channels are also coming up, which the kids love watching them all, today!
Indian Educational Channels
 India is a diverse country, and therefore it has a number of languages spoken in one nation. The educational channels, which are made specifically for the Indian audience, are state and region specific. Every region might have one channel dedicated, in their language, to education through this medium. But largely speaking the Discovery channel, The National Geographic channel, Animal planet and the History Channel are a source of educational TV watching in India.
Discovery Channel was launched in 1985 as the flagship channel of Discovery Communications, which today offers 29 network brands in 33 languages. The Animal Planet channel is dedicated to programming that highlights the relationship between humans and animals. The National Geographic Channel is a subscription television network that features documentaries produced by the National Geographic Society and they deal with nature, science and historical documents. The History Channel is a mainstream cable television channel, which presents programming related to historical events and persons.
Indian Business Channels
Very few channels in India are totally dedicated to showing a purely business oriented news throughout the day. Zee Business was India`s first Hindi business news channel to shoe purely business new for 24 hours. It went on air on November 30, 2004. The channel is positioned as a personal finance channel. It caters to an audience, which is hungry for business news in a clutter-free style, and in an easy-to-understand language. The channel`s positioning is distinct- Aapka Faayda - meaning profit, gains and money for the viewer.
Recently NDTV- Profit, a dedicated business channel is gaining huge popularity. NDTV Profit is positioned straight against CNBC-TV 18, currently the leader among business channels in India. CNBC TV-18 already has a loyal audience, cultivated over the years. NDTV had already become a semi Indian business channel in the mornings, tracking the stock market and running a stock ticker throughout the day, even to the irritation of general news watchers. But NDTV`s business programmes have been reasonably well made and compare well with CNBC`s. The major chunk of NDTV Profit`s content includes reports from the stock market, interviews with experts from markets and banking apart from corporate honchos, corporate earnings, tracking market indices, advice on personal finance and the stock market and phone-in programmes.
Indian Spiritual Channels
Religion and spirituality- believing in yourself and keeping your body and soul pure! Isn`t that what India is about, culturally? Maybe taking this as the pivot the booming media industry might have thought of launching channels, which are exclusively spiritual in nature. And there target audience is also a niche target and these channels are gaining popularity among them. In the last few years, religion and spirituality-oriented channels have mushroomed in India.
 Religious channels might not seem as glamorous as their purely entertainment-based counterparts, yet they have unique advantages in their kitty. The recent burst in interest in spirituality in urban India has ensured that devotional channel surfing is not limited to Sunday mornings. It has led to a rising demand for TV channels wholly devoted to religion and spirituality, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Sanskar, Aastha, Sadhna, Jeevan and God are some popular channels being beamed across the country today. There are others, like Maharishi Veda Vision, MiracleNet, Eternal World Television Network (EWTN) and Ahimsaa.
A lot of the excitement has to do with the channels` informal projection that a much younger generation of people is taking to spirituality. A parallel development in spiritual channels has been a change from sermonizing lectures by spiritual masters that attracted the 50-plus crowds, to popular, youth-friendly programmes like Art of Living, yoga, feng shui and vastu. It is believed that those who watch spiritual programmes don`t switch channels as often as those watching entertainment or news programmes. This might have to do with the response that religion commands in India.
Recently, live telecast of festivals like Kumbha Mela, Ganesh Chaturthi and Navratri has proven that religion will always be a huge hit with Indians. Live telecast has, in fact, given a fresh fillip to spiritual TV. Those in the business claim that the idea for religious channels is moral, social and spiritual, rather than monetary. On the contrary, Spiritual channels have sometimes come under scrutiny for being messengers of a particular religion, a disturbing thought in an environment clouded by religious prejudice.
But these wont stop the growing popularity of these channels, as viewers have claimed that they have benefited hugely from watching these channels. Sadhna, which has plans for diversification, will now begin telecasting mythological serials like Tirupati Balaji and Ganesh Mahima. An interesting show on the anvil deals with inmates of Tihar jail and their lives, and focuses on the circumstances and behavioral changes they have undergone in jail.
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