The multi lingual identity of India is a well-known characteristic of the country. There are a number of languages in India which have millions of speakers. The most interesting thing is that almost all of these languages have their own developed tradition of local entertainment. When it comes to nationally popular entertainment, it is Hindi which dominates not only cinema but also the small screen. This is actually because majority of the people in India understand Hindi and are used to speaking in Hindi in a multi-cultural setting. It is not very surprising to learn that Hindi is considered to be the general genre of entertainment in India. As a result, almost all the major entertainment companies in India invest a considerable amount of their focus on Hindi general entertainment channels. This trend, thought very useful in improving the quality of Hindi general entertainment channels, seems to have resulted in the negligence of a large section of the population who are not fluent in Hindi. The penetration of Hindi based national general entertainment has remained confined to the states belonging to the Hindi belt and the urban regions of the non-Hindi speaking states of the country. The population that is residing in the rural areas of the non-Hindi speaking states, despite forming a huge market, has remained untouched.
However, it would be wrong to say that no efforts have been made to introduce channels in regional languages. In fact, a number of media companies have been running general entertainment channels in regional languages. Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that the quality of the programmes aired on the regional language channels seldom match up to the quality of the programmes aired on the Hindi general entertainment channels. One thing which needs to be understood here is that the difference in quality of the Hindi general entertainment channels and the regional general entertainment channels does not lie in the quality of the programmes, but in the domain of technical expertise which is directly dependent on the budget. There are media companies such as Viacom 18 which have been trying to invest in the technical aspects of the general entertainment channels.
Viacom 18 has also tried to venture into a few languages in which the general entertainment genre was limited to the government sponsored channels. Its channels in those languages did not take much time to become the market leader. In fact, in a few states, the regional entertainment channel managed to become more popular than the Hindi general entertainment channels. One such channel is Colors Odia. Gujarati is the primary language spoken in the state of Odisha, yet there had been a serious absence of general entertainment programmes in the language. Colors Odia has bridged this gap with it’s their drama soaps, situational comedies, reality shows, which are all in the language of Odia.
