SOFTWARE BOOM… Real estate boom… Shares boom… These are the three words that we get to hear frequently. But now, it’s time to listen to a new word in Andhra Pradesh, and that is media boom. It is leading to a major media war, which is creating some unhealthy competition among media houses. Nobody knows whether it is for good or for bad. Media generally focuses its attention on prominent figures, but now a days common men are also becoming the victims of media attention.

 

On one hand, we must appreciate media for its wide range of coverage. But on the other hand, many people’s private lives are thrown out for public view. Because of unhealthy competition in media, they are now focussing their attention towards personal problems of civilians. This type of attitude is little bit high in electronic media than print media.

 

Few days back in Andhra Pradesh, an incident came into light regarding the harassment and murder of a college girl. She was found raped and murdered in one of the social    welfare hostels. No doubt, it is a shameful thing for the society. But some television channels telecasted that news by showing video clippings of that incident, repeatedly for two days, which is against their professional ethics. In this sense, the print media is better than electronic media.

 

These days, most of the TV channels show any other incident as ‘Breaking News’. But only those incidents should be breaking news, which attract national attention. Certainly, breaking news seems to have lost its meaning. At present, no other state in the country has such a large number of satellite channels, daily newspapers, periodicals, political magazines, etc, other than Andhra Pradesh. To name a few TV channels we have channels like ETV, ETV2, TV9, Gemini TV, Gemini news, Teja cinema, Gemini music, NTV, TV5, MAA TV, Saptagiri, Mana TV, Zee Telugu, Bhakthi TV, SamskruthiTV are the satellite channels in Telugu language. Apart from these channels, some more channels are planning to launch its programmes in Telugu. Can anyone imagine such large number of regional language channels in other parts of the country? ETV2, TV9, Gemini news, NTV, TV5 are 24 hours news channels. All these channels telecast programmes from Hyderabad only. Apart from this, ETV and TV9 telecast programmes in various regional languages from Hyderabad.

 

Eenadu is the leading Telugu Daily newspaper in Andhra Pradesh, followed by Andhra Jyothy with largest number of publications. Both the papers are printed in Bangalore, Chennai, Mumbai and Delhi. Andhra Jyothy, Vaartha, Andhra Bhoomi, Surya, Andhra Prabha, Prajasakthi, Visalandhra are other Telugu dailies in the state. To compete with all these newspapers, another newspaper called ‘Saakshi’ has come up as Telugu daily with 19 editions within the state of Andhra Pradesh. Another four editions are out of state. The management of Saakshi is planning to bring the paper in all multi-coloured pages. If it happens, then no doubt it is going to be a big revolution in print media. Andhra Pradesh chief minister, Dr YS Rajasekhara Reddy’s son, Jaganmohan Reddy, is the chairman of Saakshi. Naturally, it was stamped as a political touch. Vaartha, Andhra Prabha and Andhra Bhoomi papers managements are associated with one political party or the other. Recently, Eenadu has also been associated with one political party.

 

Apart from all these, The Hindu, The Times of India, Deccan Chronicle, The New Indian Express also have its editions in various places of Andhra Pradesh. In this unhealthy environment, ‘Newspapers’ are gradually becoming ‘Viewspapers’ of its managements. Some four to five newspapers are in various stages to hit the Andhra Pradesh in a big way. Running a newspaper house is certainly not a joke. So much of capital has to be invested. However, many rich people are showing interest to invest in various media houses. Are they really expecting to make some profits or is it that they want to benefit in some other way under the cover of media? Some serious thinking has to be done.