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not all of which are strictly economic.” Jain’s insight is particularly useful
in approaching the question of the audience. Let me elaborate by drawing
on observations and experiences in two different sites—a television cor-
poration (MTV-India), and a film promotions division of an advertising
agency (Madison Mates).

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“Now It’s Different”

Following conversations with former MTV-India executives who had worked
through the channel’s “Indianization,” I had an opportunity to spend some
time in the MTV-India office and talk to a group of people involved in film-
based programming. I was particularly interested in developing an under-
standing of how professionals at MTV-India interacted with those in the film
industry on a day-to-day basis. “We cannot sit back and expect producers to
come to us with their films, even though as MTV we have a certain brand
image,” began Anjali Malhotra, who had worked on several film-marketing
campaigns. “Stand up for a second and take a look around this office,” she
then said. “No, seriously, take a quick look,” she insisted, when I hesitated.
“No more Guns N’ Roses, it’s about Yash Raj and Shahrukh Khan now,” she
said, swiveling in her chair to look around an office in which almost every
poster was related to a Bollywood film and every cubicle had assorted Bol-
lywood film merchandise.
Echoing Jiggy George’s reflections on MTV-India’s efforts to forge rela-
tions with the film industry, Malhotra stressed that MTV did have something
new to offer to Bollywood that other television channels did not. “MTV is all
about the on-air environment,” she explained. “We don’t treat Bollywood like
Doordarshan did—something boring, something sacred. Our interviews and
shows were very interesting, and the way we packaged our stuff was very dif-
ferent from any other channel.” MTV-India’s efforts at “dovetailing cool with
Bollywood” were driven no doubt by concerns about generating profits in
an extremely competitive television market. As Malhotra acknowledged at
a later point in the conversation, the channel’s decision to “Indianize” and
begin reaching out to a much broader cross-section of viewers across the
country was motivated by the imperative to expand its portfolio of advertis-
ers. This meant, according to Malhotra, taking seriously the life-worlds of
viewers “not just in urban India but also in cities like Lucknow and Kanpur
and SEC B and SEC C segments of the market within metros like Bombay
and Delhi” (SEC—socioeconomic class).