GLOBALIZATION AND POLICY CHOICE - TELEVISION AND AUDIOVISUAL SERVICESPOLICIES IN INDIA

Policies shaping the production and distribution of electronic broadca sting or audiovisual services in India have undergone tremendous chang es from the 1980s to the 1990s. The number of channels and programming carried by Doordarshan, the state broadcaster, has grown. Private com panies both from within and outside India now produce television progr amming and distribute it through direct broadcast satellites or cable television systems. The dominant account of the Liberalization of audi ovisual services policies in India focuses almost solely on the role o f global economic forces and technical change. While policy choices ha ve been constrained, many of these limitations arose from Indian decis ions made about the role of broadcasting in the 1970 and 1980s, and fr om social and economic developments within India in the 1990s.