Dr. Kundan Aryal

Nepal Television (NTV), the country’s first and foremost television channel, is celebrating its 36th anniversary tomorrow. Although a few television sets were imported in Nepal's urban areas even before the advent of NTV, the Nepali society began to undergo the process of enculturation of television programmes only after the mid-1980s. Television broadcasting started in the West as the result of continuous efforts to develop an audio-visual technology as per the need of the developed society. In Nepal, television was merely considered as a sign of modernity and luxury. Before the arrival of NTV, very few people in the urban centres had started to watch Indian channels or had begun to play VHS tapes to watch movies on their sets.

Political purpose
King Birendra's eagerness to introduce a symbol of modernity in the Nepali society as well as his desire to run a pervasive means of communication for fulfilling the purpose of political propaganda gave birth to the NTV. Today, after 35 years, the establishment of NTV has been perceived as a historical event. It created many unintended effects if its impacts are evaluated in the perspective of those who started it. It is distinctly visible that television broadcasting has altered society in the same way as new technology does. It has altered our world. In the past three and half decades, television has accelerated the pace of change in the Nepali society as well. In the course of maturation of liberal democracy, the country has been witnessing the proliferation of the TV channels from the private sector.
When television was started in Nepal, the country's total population was as many as 16,858,310 and GDP per capita was measured bellow US$ 200 that year. The total literacy of Nepal in 1981 was as much as 23.3 per cent. Thus, a section of the population was against the initiative of establishing NTV. They viewed that since it was based on expensive technology, TV broadcasting is not appropriate for an underdeveloped nation like Nepal. They argued that it will further widen the gulf between the rich and poor. Late Durganath Sharma, a pioneer television presenter and administrator in Nepal, had recalled that during the preparatory period for the establishment of television, a strong opinion had prevailed that it would be a white elephant for the country in the days to come.
In the Western world, television was considered as one of the indicators of economic affluence. On the other hand, King Birendra was fond of television. He had been watching television whenever he went outside the country. Before the new millennium, a set of television put in a visible place inside a drawing-room of a household in the urban area was a status symbol. When NTV started its experimental transmission people in Kathmandu knowingly or unknowingly began to allocate the time to watch the television shows. The political leaders, as well as government and private sector employees and the general public, gradually started to define an event as per the television coverage. Before 1990, the ministers used to wait for the NTV camera at the inaugural ceremony of an event. They used to start a function after the arrival of the camera. An event would not be an event if it was not aired through NTV.
The proliferation of television channels in any part of the world is based on more than one factor. It has been observed that tradition or culture may also affect how people perceive different media: some cultures may be less television-bound than others or less print bound than others. It has been proved that the state of infrastructure may also account for the difference.
Even long after the initiation of television broadcasting in the West, it was a matter of curiosity and surprise in the Nepali society. Ramraj Paudyal, a former editor-in-chief of Gorakhapatra, has described his experiences of 1965 in Copenhagen, Denmark. Paudyal has stated that he was at the departure lounge of the airport. Suddenly, he heard someone's voice. He then assumed that it should be a loudspeaker, and he looks at there. It was surprising that he saw it was tentatively 1.5 feet tall and 3 feet wider box where a beautiful lady was speaking in English. He, a prominent journalist of Nepal at that time, was amazed at pronunciation, flow, the correctness of language and beauty of the lady.

Potentiality
As described in Mahabharat, a Hindu epic which was composed many thousand years ago and one of the noblest heritages of eastern civilisation, Sanjaya, the narrator of Mahabharat war, tells blind Dhritarashtra about the progress of the war with total precision. Sanjay sat by aside king Dhritarastra in the palace presents a commentary of every moment from the battleground. It is an instance which proved that technology of seeing from a long distance was developed thousands of years ago in our part of the world. Nepali society has witnessed different phases of television broadcasting. Today, the state-owned Nepal Television is flourishing continuously amidst many domestic competitors in the market. In order to tap full potentiality of NTV, it is necessary to transform it into a Public Service Broadcasting. This would-be historical event evolution of NTV has been eagerly awaited.

(Dr. Aryal is associated with the Central Department of Journalism and Mass Communication of Tribhuvan University.)