Understanding Television - Karan Thapar (HTV)

“There are four factors that differentiate TV from Newspapers

a) It is heard (seen) and not read. In a newspaper if there is a portion that is difficult to understand you can go back to it but in TV there is no recall. TV therefore must have a linear structure; arguments and facts must flow out of each other.

b) The language of TV has to be simple everyday speech. Print can afford technical terminology or even pompous expression. TV speaks to you from your drawing room and therefore the language must be easy to comprehend.

c) It is what you see on TV that creates the impact and not what you hear. Yet the commentary is the journalist’s contribution. Unlike the print, the TV journalist is alienated from the visual and it is a handicap.

d) TV has to schedule itself to offer at given hours what people can be expected to want to see। A good schedule will make people want to सी.what it is offering.

(Extract from article by Karan Thapar in the SEMINAR )