History
Terrestrial television in India started with the experimental telecast starting in Delhi on 15 September 1959 with a small transmitter and a makeshift studio. The regular daily transmission started in 1965 as a part of All India Radio. The television service was extended to Bombay (now Mumbai) and Amritsar in 1972. Up until 1975, only seven Indian cities had a television service. Television services were separated from radio in 1976. National telecasts were introduced in 1982. In the same year, colour TV was introduced in the Indian market. Indian small screen programming started off in the early 1980s. At that time there was only one national channel Doordarshan, which was government owned. The Ramayana and Mahabharata (both Indian spiritual & mythological stories) were the first major television series produced. This serial notched up the world record in viewership numbers for a single program. By the late 1980s more and more people started to own television sets. Though there was a single channel, television programming had reached saturation. Hence the government opened up another channel which had part national programming and part regional. This channel was known as DD 2 later DD Metro. Both channels were broadcast terrestrially.
PAS-1 and PAS-4 are satellites whose transponders help in the telecasting of DD programmes in half the regions of the world.An international channel called DD International was started in 1995 and it telecasts programmes for 19 hours a day to foreign countries-via PAS-4 to Europe,Asia and Africa, and via PAS-1 to North America.
TV Programs: The eighties was the era of Doordarshan with shows like Hum Log (1984), Buniyaad (1986–87) and comedy shows like Yeh Jo Hai Zindagi (1984), Mythological dramas like Ramayan (1987–88) and Mahabharat (1989–90) glued millions to Doordarshan and later on Bharat Ek Khoj, The Sword of Tipu Sultan and Chandrakanta. Hindi film songs based programs like Chitrahaar, Rangoli, Superhit Muqabla crime thrillers like Karamchand, Byomkesh Bakshi. Shows targeted at children include Dada Dadi ki Kahaniyan, Vikram Betal, Malgudi Days, Tenali Rama.
Read more about this topic: Television In India
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