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94 << Marketing and Promotions in Bollywood

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central concern for Doordarshan during the early 1980s. But overall, the
film industry had little influence in shaping this new television audience
commodity. It is also clear that at no point during the 1980s did the ratings
discourse, which established the dominance and revenue-generating poten-
tial of film-based programming, become part of filmmakers’ frameworks
for imagining their audiences. As Ganti’s research shows, even into the
mid-1990s market research was largely absent in the film industry. Indeed,
the film industry’s view of the “audience” as a “collectivity that needs to
be protected, to be led, and to be educated” coincided neatly with the
“development” and infotainment-oriented programming of state-regulated
Doordarshan. 32
In addition to providing content for film-based television programming,
during this period the film industry also became a major source of creative
and professional talent for the production of sitcoms, dramas, and other
sponsored television programs. Casting aside apprehensions that television
would lure audiences away from the cinema theaters, prominent producers
and directors like G. P. Sippy, B. R. Chopra, and Ramanand Sagar began pro-
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ducing television programs. The spurt in television production during this
time set in place a new “trajectory of creative migration” for actors, writers,
and technicians, many of whom were graduates of the Film and Television
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Institute of India (FTII) struggling to break into the film industry. And with
major advertising agencies like Lintas and Trikaya-Grey establishing televi-
sion production divisions and emerging as brokers between Doordarshan
and production talent in the Bombay film industry, links between film, tele-
vision, and advertising were firmly established. This three-way relationship,
controlled in near-absolute fashion by Doordarshan during the 1980s, was
dramatically altered by the entry and growth of cable and satellite television
beginning in 1991–92.

Bollywoodizing MTV-India

Beginning in May 1991, when STAR TV started broadcasting over Asia from
Hong Kong, audiences in India had access to a much broader range of pro-
gramming that was radically different from “the censored news, regulated
documentaries, patriotic songs, and nationalist sitcoms on the state-spon-
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sored network.” While there were just four channels initially (Star Plus,
Star Sports, BBC News, and MTV), by the late 1990s almost every trans-
national satellite television corporation had entered the Indian market. In
addition, by the mid-1990s a number of commercial networks such as SUN
and Eenadu had established themselves by catering to a large and lucrative