Media in Goa
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Goa is a small (3700 square kilometres, 1.4 million population) former Portuguese colony, and currently India's smallest state located on the west coast of South Asia. It's media is a complex reality to understand and comprehend, and has often been commented on.
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[edit] Background
Over the years, the media has changed vastly from (in its early 20th century days) being a battlefield for influential lobbies within the local Catholic society (including caste-based elites, or politically divided groups) which were largely controlled by influential and educated local elites. After the end of Portuguese rule in 1961, a number of new newspapers were set up, which were closely aligned to the influential local mining lobby. This too has changed in recent years, with some sections of the media being more closely politically aligned.
[edit] English and Marathi
Widest read papers in Goa tend to be published currently in the English and Marathi languages, with the widely-spoken local language of Konkani presently have just a single daily newspaper, called Sunaparant. This is because Marathi and English are widely used for literary and written purposes in Goa currently, while Konkani remains the most widely spoken language. It also needs to be noted that Konkani-versus-Marathi linguistic battles have led to some rivalry between these two language camps. (As of 2006, there is also some friction between the users of the official Devanagiri script and the Roman, or Romi, script users of Konkani.)
English-language papers in Goa comprise The Navhind Times, published by the mining house of the Dempos since 1963 and currently (as of February 2006) edited by Arun Sinha, the former Portuguese-language daily now an English-language broadsheet called Herald or, more formally going by the name it is registered under, O Heraldo. This paper is owned by Fernandes Publications, a local group involved in printing enterprises that grew out of an earlier stationery shop. The third English-language daily publication is Gomantak Times, which changed hands recently from its earlier owners from the mining house of the Chowgules to the politically linked Pawar family, based in the neighbouring state of Maharashtra.
In February 2006, the editors of the Herald and Gomantak Times were Robin Abreu, a journalist earlier based in Mumbai and Sujay Gupta, who worked for The Telegraph of Kolkata and other newspapers.
The lone English-monthly is the Goa Today, edited by Vinayak Naik and owned by the Goa Publications, a firm controlled by the Salgaocars mining house. Other publications in the English-language include the Goa Messenger, Goan Observer, etc.
In the field of Marathi, some of the popular newspapers are the Tarun Bharat (which was earlier published from the neighbouring city of Belgaum but now has its presses in Porvorim); the Gomantak (a sister publication of the Gomantak Times, and much more influential in the past); Navprabha of The Navhind Times/Dempos group, and other publications which mostly come out with "Goa editions" published through presses and offices run from outside Goa.
One recent development was the launch of the Gova Doot.Another nearly three-decade old newspaper, the Marathi daily Rashtramath from the South Goa city of Margao suspended publications at the early part of this decade.
In the 1980s, a Roman-script Konkani paper called Novem Goem folded up in large part due to financial difficulties and alleged mismanagement, in spite of being set up with much enthusiasm and even a drive to collect funds for it through a 'padyatra' (foot-march) across Goa.
[edit] Radio
Goa was once home to the Emisora Goa, a powerful radio station that was widely listened to when this small region was still a Portuguese colony. After the end of Portuguese rule, this station was replaced by a station from the All India Radio network.
It's studios are at Altinho, the hillock atop state-capital Panaji – also known as Panjim, Pangim or Ponnje – and its transmitters are located at Bambolim, some 5 km away. Bambolim also houses some powerful transmitters that broadcast foreign-language programmes as part of India's international programme.
Besides the local primary channel, All India Radio also has an FM, or frequency modulated channel. It is called Rainbow FM. In early 2006, it extended its FM broadcast hours from roughly half-day to full-day, but this now includes programmes relayed in from New Delhi.
In end-January 2006, three private FM radio players – linked to the Indian media giant Times of India, the BPL electronics hardware firm, and the mega corporation Anil Ambani-linked Adlabs – won bids to set up private FM radio stations in Goa.
[edit] Broadcasting background
In the mid-nineties, when India first experimented private FM broadcasts, the small tourist destination of Goa was the fifth place in this country of one billion where private players got FM slots. The other four centres were the big metro cities – Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai.
In Phase-II of FM licensing, Goa (rather, it's state capital of Panaji) was categorised as a 'D' class city, i.e. having a population between 100,000 to 300,000.
Private FM in 'D' class cities can use transmitters of 1 to 3 kW ERP (transmitter power output). (The categorization of cities is based on population strength. So, for instance, though Kolkata is an A+ city, it got much lower bids than Chandigarh, which is a C category city. India's FM Phase-II policy document is available on www.mib.nic.in )
In Goa, India's smallest state with a population of just 1.4 million, the successful bidders were ENIL (Times group – Radio Mirchi) Rs 17.1 million; Indigo (BPL – Rajiv Chandrasekhar) Rs 12.9 million; and Adlabs (Reliance – Anil Ambani group) Rs 12.1 million.
Indian policy currently lays down that these bids are a One-Time Entry Fee (OTEF), for the entire license period of 10 years.
(Under the Indian accounting system, this amount is amortised for the 10 year period at 10% per year. In other words, in the company's profit-and-loss account, ENIL will calculate their Rs 17.1 million as Rs 1.71 million per year.)
The Reserve Price is calculated as 25% of the highest valid bid. In this case, the reserve price in the Goan capital is Rs 4.27 million.
Annual license fee for private players is either 4% of revenue share or 10% of Reserve Price, whichever is higher. Therefore, the minimum guaranteed annual payment for Panaji FM operators would be 10% of Rs 4.27 million, or Rs 427,000 only (unless their revenue is much higher).
Earlier, India's attempts to privatise its FM channels ran into rough weather, when private players bid heavily and most could not meet their commitments to pay the governments the amounts they had expected.
In FM Phase-1 (year 2000), the highest bid in Goa was Rs 41.5 million. Under the policy then, this would have escalated – at 15% each year – to Rs. 146 million by the tenth year of operation. The bidder would have ended up paying Rs. 42.6 crores over 10 years! Some see it as not surprising that the major players then backed off.
This time round, the only local company from Goa to bid for a license this time was Tarun Bharat Multigraphics. All the winning players are based outside Goa; it is to be seen what effect this will have on the way their channels are run.
All the three winning bidders this time will have to co-site their transmitting infrastructure with All India Radio's tower on the outskirts of Panaji, unless the policy is changed.
AIR’s FM Rainbow has a six kW transmitter, and even this is not heard properly in some distant areas of Goa. The private FM operators are allowed only 3 kW transmitters.
Radio Mirchi (of what was the Times FM group, run by one of the biggest newspaper chains in the country) is making a come-back to Goa after many years. In the late 1980s and early 90s, Times FM used to buy air-time on AIR’s Panaji FM channel.
The three new 24 hour stereo channels are expected to go on air by the end of 2006. Times could be first off the mark, but the others also have deep pockets.
C and D category cities are allowed to network and share programming, but generally, channels prefer to do in-house programming.
News in not permitted on private FM (though the federal minister says this may be reconsidered in two or three years). Nationally, many of the current FM players – like the Times of India, Hindustan Times, Mid-Day, BBC etc – are essentially newspaper chains or media, and they are already making a strong pitch for News on FM.
[edit] Broadcast initiatives
As of now (February 2006), Goa does not have any independent television stations, apart from the state-funded Doordarshan broadcasting network, which puts out programmes in local languages (Konkani, Marathi) for a small duration.
But there are TV-news operations, which cover local events including political developments and reach viewers through the local cable network. Such operations include the Goa Newsline, Goa Plus, Goa365, among others. The earlier BJP government had officially acknowledged that it was subsidising the operations of some networks, and argued that this was needed to promote programming in the local language.
[edit] Critiques of the media
Writing in the early 1980s,, anthropologist Dr Robert S Newman spoke about the relationship with the media in Goa with the "big families" – mainly comprising "a handful of small-businessmen, traditional landowners, and war profiteers (who) received iron ore mining licenses, and were encouraged to dig and ship the ore to Japan (which needed it for reconstruction after World War II)."
Newman wrote, in an essay titled Goa - The Transformation of an Indian Region, published in Pacific Affairs (August 1984) wrote: "[Goa's first post-colonial chief minister Dayanand] Bandodkar and his fellow industrialists attempted to shape public opinion through their newspapers – there are almost no independent papers in Goa – and through tertiary educational institutions which they themselves had established. The Chowgules, for example, launched the newspapers Gomantak and Uzvadd, and were founders of an arts and science college at Margao; the Salgaocars founded a law college; and the Dempos own The Navhind Times and Navprabha, and are involved in Dhempe College at Miramar."
Another essay titled Popular Protest and the Free Goa Press (pp 91-113) in Norman Dantas' The Transformation of Goa (The Other India Press, Mapusa, 1999) argues: "In Goa, the daily newspapers' editorial stances on various protest movements would tend to reveal a largely unfriendly attitude towards such actions. It is not perhaps coincidental that individuals and groups involved in protest issues in Goa have often felt that they have received an unfair deal from the media." It looks at protest and the media response to it in Goa over a three decade period, from the early 'sixties to the 'nineties.
