{"id":1765,"date":"2026-10-12T18:31:44","date_gmt":"2026-10-12T18:31:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tiwaripedia.com\/index.php\/2026\/10\/12\/history-of-television-in-india\/"},"modified":"2026-10-12T18:31:44","modified_gmt":"2026-10-12T18:31:44","slug":"history-of-television-in-india","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tiwaripedia.com\/index.php\/2026\/10\/12\/history-of-television-in-india\/","title":{"rendered":"The History of Television in India: From Doordarshan to Streaming"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1200\" height=\"675\" src=\"https:\/\/www.tiwaripedia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/history-of-television-in-india-infographic.png\" alt=\"Infographic: The History of Television in India: From Doordarshan to Streaming\" class=\"wp-image-1764\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.tiwaripedia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/history-of-television-in-india-infographic.png 1200w, https:\/\/www.tiwaripedia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/history-of-television-in-india-infographic-300x169.png 300w, https:\/\/www.tiwaripedia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/history-of-television-in-india-infographic-1024x576.png 1024w, https:\/\/www.tiwaripedia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/history-of-television-in-india-infographic-768x432.png 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\" \/><\/figure>\n<p>Television transformed how Indians received news and entertainment, bringing the whole country together in front of the screen.<\/p>\n<h2>The beginning: 1959<\/h2><p>Indian television began on <strong>15 September 1959<\/strong> with an experimental broadcast from Delhi. Programmes were short and educational, and only a handful of TV sets existed. This service later became <strong>Doordarshan<\/strong>, which was separated from All India Radio in 1976.<\/p>\n<h2>SITE: TV for villages<\/h2><p>In 1975\u201376, the <strong>Satellite Instructional Television Experiment (SITE)<\/strong>, using a NASA satellite, beamed educational programmes on farming, health and family planning to thousands of villages, a pioneering use of satellite TV.<\/p>\n<h2>Colour and national broadcasts<\/h2><p>In <strong>1982<\/strong>, colour television and national broadcasts arrived in time for the <strong>Asian Games<\/strong> hosted in Delhi. TV sales boomed.<\/p>\n<h2>Iconic serials<\/h2><p>The 1980s saw classics such as <em>Hum Log<\/em>, India&#8217;s first long-running soap opera, <em>Buniyaad<\/em>, <em>Malgudi Days<\/em> and the epics <em>Ramayan<\/em> (1987) and <em>Mahabharat<\/em> (1988). Streets reportedly emptied on Sunday mornings when they aired.<\/p>\n<h2>The satellite revolution: 1991<\/h2><p>After economic liberalisation, foreign and private satellite channels arrived from 1991 through cable networks. Soon India had channels in many languages for news, films, cartoons, sport and music.<\/p>\n<h2>DTH and digital TV<\/h2><p>Direct-to-home (DTH) satellite services in the 2000s brought clearer pictures and hundreds of channels to homes, including remote areas. Doordarshan&#8217;s free DTH service reaches millions of rural homes.<\/p>\n<h2>The streaming era<\/h2><p>Cheap mobile data and smartphones have led millions to watch shows and films on streaming apps and video platforms. Smart TVs combine both worlds. Yet television remains one of the most widely used media in India, especially for news and live sport such as cricket.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Indian television began with an experimental Doordarshan broadcast in 1959. Learn how TV grew through colour broadcasts, iconic serials, satellite channels and today&#8217;s streaming era.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1764,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[337],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tiwaripedia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1765"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tiwaripedia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tiwaripedia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tiwaripedia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tiwaripedia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1765"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tiwaripedia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1765\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tiwaripedia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1764"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tiwaripedia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tiwaripedia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tiwaripedia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}