Regional television (almost) on demand

Watching television on the Internet has its pluses and minuses. It can never rival a good television set, but a good television portal on the web is one situation in which the advantages outweigh the drawbacks. Above all, of course, its virtue lies in the fact that it offers access to programmes without having to watch them at the time of broadcast.

With TV Southasia and its online portal, tvsouthasia.com, the main selling point is its Southasian-ness. For many Indians who have little contact with their subcontinental neighbours, it gives access throughout the day to programmes from Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal and Pakistan. And that holds true for people in each of these countries, though satellite TV may already be offering them access to a significant amount of India-centric programming. (This April, TV Southasia also began broadcasting via satellite.) For those interested in their neighbours and what their television sets have to offer, it is genuinely pleasurable to watch chat shows, cookery programmes and music from throughout the region. If you have a good LCD monitor (the bigger the better) and fast, reliable broadband, this is certainly a site to get to know.

Having said that, there is a lot more that the TV Southasia portal will need to do if it is to be serious about its mission. The viewing experience at the moment is completely random, with the web-surfer having no choice in the matter. Log in, and take what you get. There is a programme schedule for the evening hours, but the actual programming does not really seem to stick to it. As yet, there is no facility for viewing on demand, an odd anachronism given the technologies currently available. You have to watch whatever you happen to chance upon, which in this reviewer's case was a random mix of documentaries, chat shows from Pakistan and Bangladesh, music performances, and a studio chat on online identity theft from Sri Lanka. Through the course of this spectrum of content, however, the level of sophistication remained fairly consistent, which is notable in itself.

There are currently five channels that are part of the TV Southasia experiment: Aaj TV from Pakistan, Rtv from Bangladesh, the Image Channel from Nepal, Tara Newz from India and MTV/News 1st from Sri Lanka. This number needs to be quadrupled at the very least, to make it much more representative of Southasia and its sub-regions, and to make it a desirable option for folks not just in Southasia but for those in the worldwide disapora. A sharp, updated focus on current affairs needs to be added to give the overall content more bite. How much cooking, gushing over studio guests, or guitar strumming can anyone watch? Yes, there are classical singers too, but when they cannot be viewed on demand, this does not really help.

Some of the documentary material leaves much to be desired. The documentary that I happened to catch was called Uttaradhikar. It was about the women of Uttaranchal, and featured a wizened grass-cutter in the hills being interrogated by an interviewer. The questions went something like this: What do you eat, if you have so little earnings? What do you mean you depend on god – does he cook food and send it from above? Tell us honestly, do you drink liquor? You are lying, you must drink, no? Your husband must beat you sometimes? Does your husband have any other women? Are you sure? Men are very badmaash. Do you believe in god? Why, what has he given you? Mercifully, the usual broadband glitches intervened at this point, and the programme came to an end.

Merciful hiccups aside, unless they live in a country with fantastic infrastructure, Internet viewers will not be able to watch a single TV Southasia programme without experiencing technical problems. Variations in the speed of connection invariably cause programmes to freeze, at which point you have to go back to the home page and start all over again. Those who keep at it, however, can find some treasures amidst the programming. From Pakistan comes a glamour puss called Begum Nawazish Ali who does coquettish interviews with celebrities. I love her nakras, though over a half-hour show they can become a bit tiresome. And Bangladeshi interviewer Rubana Huq, tackling the newly appointed British ambassador to Bangladesh, Stephen Evans, had a few lapses, but it was fascinating to be able to find such a programme at all. Meanwhile, though, the news part of the site makes it clear that this remains something of a string-along venture at the moment, with no dedicated staff doing updates on a daily basis. When the suicide bombing took place at the Indian embassy in Kabul on 7 July, for instance, TV Southasia included no mention of it that night.

Growing pains notwithstanding, the potential of such a Southasian broadcaster and website is tremendous. TV Southasia's Internet site should be able to confidently override the restrictions on foreign-channel telecasts that have been imposed by several of the region's countries. For that, however, it needs to mean business – to invest money and technology – and not stop at being a hobbyhorse for Southasia enthusiasts.

~ Sevanti Ninan is a columnist, author and editor of the media watchdog, www.thehoot.org.