ROLE OF TELEVISION IN DRIVING AN INDIAN CULTURE OF INNOVATION

CONCEPT PAPER

August 2011

Office of the Adviser to the Prime Minister Public Information Infrastructure and Innovations

Introduction
The National Innovation Council has been tasked by the Prime Minister of India to discuss, analyse, and help implement strategies for inclusive innovation in India, and prepare a roadmap for innovation 2010-2020. The Councils tasking follows from the President of Indias declaration of 2010 as the beginning of a Decade of Innovation for the country, and seeks to drive a national strategy on innovation focused on Indian models of inclusive growth. This strategy will see innovation used as a tool to engage the challenges of development, demography, and disparity, in every sector; preparing our country for the knowledge economy of the 21st century. The Council believes that if Indians are to make their countrys Decade of Innovation 2010-2011 a success: they will need to foster a national innovation movement; one that will unleash Indian creativity to generate the new thinking, new responses, and new mindsets we need to reshape our economic and social lives. The participation of Indias dynamic media sector in inspiring and driving this movement will be crucially important, in achieving this goal tapping into an influential reservoir of cultural influence and talent, to place innovation at the heart of Indian thinking.

Mobilising a Culture of Innovation: The Power of Television

A key tool at Indias disposal, with which to create this culture: is her television network. Four factors make Indian television a powerful tool with which to drive and generate an Indian culture of innovation; and a focus of National Innovation Council interest. Television networks have immense physical and demographic reach A crucial engine of cultural influence and transformation, Indian television programming now reaches 253 million households across the country reaching 84% penetration levels in 20101, and addressing one of the worlds largest television audiences2. Televisions footprint continues to rise: with penetration in TV, cable and satellite, and digital television increasing by 9%, 11% and 54% respectively in 2009-20103. Importantly, most of that growth has emerged from beyond Indias major metropolitan centres much of it from rural markets4 making television a genuinely democratic medium, with truly nationwide reach. backed by great influence If television has expanded its points of presence across India it also wields great influence at each of those points. Reality shows, for example, are now seen as drivers of social change, and (sometimes controversially) as provoking departures from traditional values and
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TAM Media Research, TAM Annual Universe Update 2010. Slide 22. Available at http://www.tamindia.com/tamindia/NL_Tam/Overview_Universe%20update%20-%202010.pdf. 2 Vaidyanathan, Rajini. Does India have the X factor? BBC, 30 May 2011. Available at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia13592636 3 TAM Media Research, op cit. Slides 25, 30. 4 Ibid.

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thinking5. Crucially, this influence is believed to be wielded largely with Indias youth transform their viewing patterns and cultural preferences6. Television networks and producers have also been able to enhance this influence in many cases, through the ability of individual shows to use complementary technologies in reaching young Indians. A particular example of such technology is the mobile phone; the use of tactics such as SMS-based voting and feedback has helped increase interaction around these shows to a great extent, among important demographics. Indeed, estimates7 have shown that income generated from mobile phone messaging (and related interaction) now constitute a significant proportion of overall revenue, for some shows. and a wide repertoire of techniques and formats. Television networks can deploy a formidable range of tools and show formats ranging from interviews and discussion programmes, through reality programming, talent shows, and serials, to documentary shows and advertising campaigns. Each tool is able to convey information and awareness to a particular segment of Indias population, to a different degree, with a special level of penetration and retention; and, in Indias varied media industry, each tool has its specialists. Combined, mobilised and deployed, these tools can drive awareness and provoke action with great flexibility and fidelity; making them powerful assets in Indias endeavour to become a more innovative nation. A call to action. The National Innovation Council would therefore like to call on Indias television and media industry to consider using their capacities to help create awareness and encourage action around driving Indian innovation. An effort of this nature, backed by the resources and ingenuity of Indias media talent, will inspire millions of people to start thinking innovatively generating the mindset that will make the Decade of Innovation a success. The sheer diversity of Indias vibrant media sector, and the variety of formats and tools it can use in their work will make it an ideal stakeholder in the endeavour to drive the message of innovation amongst our people, across region, language, demographic, and taste.

Communicating an Indian Model of Innovation

Indias media sector will choose its own targets and develop its own ideas, in any attempt to focus on Indian innovation. However, we would like to suggest a few broad themes and concepts, to help provoke the sectors thinking. Inclusiveness. Indias largest challenges lie at the Bottom of the Pyramid; and include some of the most fundamental needs education, environment, energy, healthcare, agriculture, and livelihood.
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Nair, Rupam Jain. Reality TV shatters taboos in India. AFP, 19 April 2010. Available at http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5g_p01wKZOVDarX49Xu1O1772JwLQ 6 Timmons, Heather. In India, Reality TV Catches On, With Some Qualms. New York Times, 9 January 2011. Available at http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/10/business/media/10reality.html?_r=1 7 Ibid.

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India needs more frugal innovation, that are able to offer lower-cost products and services to Indian citizens with lower incomes. This will help eliminate the economic disparity that characterises much of India, and meet the needs of many in the best possible manner using grassroots innovation to drive access, affordability, and quality. A media focus on how innovation can be used to solve our peoples most critical needs will help encourage an innovation movement that concentrates on addressing them. Grassroots Innovation. To create a genuine innovation movement, with an accompanying shift in national mindset India needs innovation to be encouraged on the ground, among common citizens. We suggest the show-casing of the talent, creativity, and challenges that characterise Indias grassroots. This will give the show a degree of popular and cultural resonance: providing it with the seemingly ordinary, but extraordinarily talented protagonists that Indian viewers can related to; while simultaneously demonstrating to Indian citizens, the potential for innovation that lies within their seemingly well-understood everyday lives. Platforms. Innovation in India needs to be widespread, transcending the traditional boundaries of technology and formal research and development to embrace products, services, processes, organisations and institutions, and culture. This broad, platform approach to defining innovation will provide Indians with a wider sense of where new thinking is needed providing them with the basis, and the motivation, required to carry this out. Guidance. Indian viewers excited by the innovators featured in media may wish to understand the nuts and bolts of how innovation may be made successful. Information and guidance on key aspects of innovation patent filing, market assessment, product design, fundraising may provide the viewers with the input they need to follow through on their interest; and help India capitalise on the excitement generated around the show. Programming that provides viewers with the input they need to carry innovative ideas forward and guidance to resources and organisations that can provide funding, incubation, or mentoring is therefore suggested; some of this may be provided to show producers by the National Innovation Council itself. Showcasing and Mentoring. India has an extraordinary record of creativity and innovation in a range of areas from new technologies created by R&D laboratories, to the local innovation that has been captured so successfully by entities like the National Innovation Foundation. We suggest that showcasing these successful innovations and drawing on the experience of the innovators behind them may provide participants and viewers alike with examples of success and the guidance and inspiration needed to emulate them. Key organisations that engage these areas including the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, and the National Innovation Foundation itself are

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represented on the National Innovation Council, and may be contacted to provide support and input.

Support from the National Innovation Council

To encourage such activity, the National Innovation Council would like to offer the following support to qualified media houses, engaged in developing media outreach programmes centred on driving the message of innovation. This support will be mediated via the National Innovation Council Secretariat, at the Office of the Adviser to the Prime Minister, Public Information Infrastructure and Innovations. 1. Introductions to institutions and organisations, currently represented on the National Innovation Council, possessing access to resources and repositories of innovation, and information thereof: providing media houses with databases of innovators and innovations, and the ability to depict and feature them. These will include research laboratory networks, innovation foundations and organisations, and the like. 2. Introductions to National Innovation Council members who, as pre-eminent experts in their respective domains of innovation, can provide expert input, advice, and guidance on innovation and its delivery. 3. Introductions to innovation experts within the organisations currently represented on the National Innovation Council: who can provide advisory guidance and input on any specific areas of innovation, which media entities wish to cover or understand. 4. Introductions to key incubation, mentoring, and angel networks, involved in the promotion and support of innovation, currently represented on the Council. 5. Introductions to district and local administrations in regions of the country where innovations are to be featured. 6. Introductions to the Sectoral Innovation Councils currently being formed in the various departments of the Central Government, to identify and encourage innovation within their focus areas; thus providing media entities with access to information resources related to innovation. Introductions to the State Innovation Councils currently being formed by State governments across the country; providing access to resources of expertise and information on innovation in regional areas. This may be particularly helpful to regional language channels and media houses, who might wish to feature the rich body of innovation and innovators active within their home states.

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Office of the Adviser to the Prime Minister on Public Information Infrastructure and Innovations