National 9 (Spotlight Weekly)

TV Transformation

Technology and competition have produced greater ease and anxiety

By AKSHAY SHARMA

"A friend of mine recently won a television set in a lottery. After I congratulated him, I asked myself whether it would have been better if he had won a computer," says Praladh Gautam of Kalaiya, south-west of Kathmandu. "That way, he could have watched a movie, television programs, and listened to music at the same time."

The breath-taking pace with which technological advances are occurring tends to obscure the story of television's arrival and growth in Nepal. "It was around 1984 that television came to Kathmandu," remembers Father James J Donnelly, an English teacher at Saint Xavier's School. "Before that people used to read books and find other ways of entertaining themselves."

Grainy images of India's state-run Doordarshan channel had just begun gracing TV sets in the capital when state-own Nepal Television started test transmissions. In many families, members of three generations sat together to watch cartoons, the news, film songs and everything else that came between the opening and closing of transmission. Until the early 1990s, NTV and Doordarshan were the two main channels that informed and entertained viewers in the capital and other urban centers.

"I still remember those days when we had to rely on something called the booster to watch the state-run Indian channel," says Sudhir Serchan. "I had to climb onto the roof and rotate the antenna. It took three guys to set the proper alignment. One for rotating the antenna, the other to sit in front of the TV and see if the transmission was okay. The third was the intermediary between the person rotating the antenna and the person sitting in front of the TV set."

Things have become infinitely easier these days. You can hook onto any of the many cable companies competing to offer a wide variety of channels corresponding to almost all audience tastes. With this convenience has come key questions: Is television spoiling the minds of the new generation? Is it taking up time students would have spent studying? Is television undermining reading habits?

"It is actually entertainment that I seek and it feels good to sit relaxing in front of a TV," says 27-year-old Pranav Bhattarai. "On an average I spend eight to ten hours a month in front of the television. There are good and bad parts of television. If you choose to watch senseless programs that can corrupt your mind, then you are doomed," he says. "But you can choose to watch programs that are useful and educating. I like to watch Santosh Pant's 'Hijo Aja Ka Kura' on Nepal Television on Friday evenings."

Private-sector broadcasters are stepping in to provide local content of all kinds. The success of FM radio stations in the capital and other urban centers in recent years has encouraged innovation and creativity in the electronic media. "To build a fair and free market, the government would do better by loosening control over the outlets," says Pranav. Sagar Thapaliya, 24, believes reading and watching TV offer totally different experiences that cannot be compared. "I like to read the books of Jane Austen, but I find TV equally stimulating." He says there is ample room for improving Nepalese TV programs. "Some of the shows are really amazing and educating. Nepalese channels should build their manpower to raise the quality of their content."

It might be a while before Nepalis start watching TV news headlines and listening to the latest music craze simultaneously on the computer. But they have certainly come a long way since the mid-1980s. "Thank God, we don't have to rotate antennas anymore," says Sudhir.