South Indian TV Markets Defy Hindi Imposition

The DNA on Dec 9th reported a story on how non-Hindi television market in India is faring, calling that market wrongly as the "regional" market:

The regional television market in India is poised for a quantum leap with the entry of conglomerates and a bigger-than-expected spurt in advertising revenue. Experts believe the regional markets are still to be tapped to their fullest potential since their share of the total TV advertising revenues is only 25% compared with their viewership share of 37%.

The major regional markets are Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Bengali and Marathi, in that order.

Hindi, which is also as regional a language as any, doesn't figure in this analysis because it's assumed to be "national". The Hindi Impositionists win again. Damn. Another point to note is that languages which have been derived from Sanskrit (Bengali, Marathi) figure low in the list of major markets even though their populations are considerably higher than the populations of the southern states. Look at this striking imbalance between population and market:

Languages ordered by decreasing order of speaker population:

1. Bengali
2. Telugu
3. Marathi
   
4. Tamil
5. Kannada
6. Malayalam

Languages ordered by decreasing order of market:

1. Tamil
2. Telugu
3. Kannada
4. Malayalam
5. Bengali
6. Marathi

If you haven't noticed, the Marathis and Bengalis, although their populations are very high, have very small markets for their own languages! Kannadigas, who are 5th in the population-list, figure 3rd in the market-list. The Tamilians who are 4th in the population-list figure 1st in the market-list. The Telugus are 2nd in both lists. While the people of the south have defied Hindi Imposition, the Marathis and Bengalis have been gobbled up by Hindi. Also, it is clear that the languages of South India - which are not derived from Sanskrit - are the new rising stars in the market. The Marathis and Bengalis have some catching up to do.

For the complete news story, read: Regional TV heats up as biggies beam in
Population data source:List of Indian languages by total speakers