Televised religion in India : couch spirituality of the new millennium and its revenue model

From: Tehelka, 3 July 2011

Press button, switch religion

Hindu, Muslim, Christian – religious channels are mushrooming in India. What impact are they making? What fuels their zeal? How authentic are the godmen? How altruistic is the spiritual industry? Supriya Menon finds out

Telly watch at 11:30pm. When most channels are wooing hormones with packages like Night Shift and Wild On, flick to Sanskar. You are greeted with an image of a Shiv Lingam made out of mercury. The voice-over extols the virtues of the liquid metal for its mettle as a unique healing agent, certified by sadhus and the Vedas. “This Shiv Lingam absorbs all the pollution and negative energies around you. Proof of it lies in the fact that it gets dirty after a while. Clean it with the special pad provided free with Sangam Skyshop’s mercury Shiv Lingam, priced at just Rs 2,490.” A ticker scrolling at the bottom of the screen gives you a toll-free number to get the “unique” idol delivered to your home, packaged in “an attractive box.” Advertorial over, it is time for a guru to take over, and lecture on the Ramayan. Punch the remote some more and you are greeted by a 14-year old kid on Aastha. He speaks extempore on the magnanimity of “har mahadev,” as people old enough to be his grandfather touch his feet. Flick again, to God. Fender guitars wail and drummers imitate motion blurs; the singer is praising the Lord.

Welcome to couch spirituality of the new millennium. Over the last couple of years, more religious television channels have mushroomed in India than you can flick a remote at. Aastha, Sanskar, Maharishi, Om Shanti, Maa TV, MiracleNet, God TV, Quran TV… The list is getting longer every day. And the spiritual airwaves are being beamed from all over the country as well as abroad. While Aastha operates entirely from Mumbai, Sanskar has studios in Indore and Delhi too. Maharishi is telecast from the Capital while Maa TV is based in Hyderabad. Om Shanti is Mount Abu-based. Quran TV beams out from Dubai. Both God TV and MiracleNet have regional offices in Chennai while the former is telecast from Jerusalem.

Aastha and Sanskar were born as a result of a fall out between Kirit Mehta (owner of Aastha and promoter of the CMM music channel) and Kishore Mohata (one of the four directors of Sanskar). Initially both of them had planned to launch Aastha together. MiracleNet was co-founded by an American, J. Michael Hughes, and his Indian wife Sarah Hughes. And as the name suggests, the channel proclaims that watching it and chanting the name of the lord will make miracles happen. (A letter on the internet says one of the ‘miracles’ witnessed by a MiracleNet viewer in India was that his son passed the ninth grade exam.) God was started by Rory and Wendy Alec in the UK in 1995, till Jesus Christ instructed them (in a dream, no less) to move to Jerusalem.

And that’s not all. Several new channels are in the pipeline. Even big names like Zee Telefilms have taken the holy plunge with the launch of a 24-hour channel, Jagran, on January 14. Anil Anand, its business head, says, “The religious channel genre is proliferating.” The fight for pious eyeballs doesn’t worry the new flagbearers of spirituality. “The more, the merrier. I am more than happy when a Zee or a Sony follows me,” says Mehta.

But who’s watching the plethora of satsangs - some of them even filmed with hidden cams because temples do not allow cameras — bhajans, kirtans, gospels and namaz on the idiot box? Only 0.5 percent of the country’s population, according to the latest TAM (Television Audience Measurement) ratings. The joint survey by AC Nielsen and IMRB also reveals that Sanskar is the leader with 0.24 percent of the viewers while Aastha is a close second at 0.21 percent.

But if so many channels are mushrooming, there must be money in it. Interestingly, the main revenue model for these channels is the godmen themselves. For in Shining India, most big gurus are akin to corporate houses. They have slick websites, media managers, personal assistants and all the other paraphernalia you would associate with an industry honcho. Eager to tap the spiritual market, they pay the channels for being beamed into your home. A few industry insiders admit to this, though most hem and haw. Arvind Joshi, distribution and marketing manager of Aastha, tells us that the channel charges almost everyone, but the rates depend on popularity, topic and the kind of viewership expected. He says candidly that his channel gets about 80 percent of its revenue from such sources: “The ads account only for 20 percent.” “A 20-minute slot for a period of a month goes anywhere between Rs 1.5-2.5 lakh per month,” says Mehta, the owner of Aastha. Freelance director of religious programmes, Keshav Rai puts the tag higher, at Rs 3 lakh. The modus operandi is simple. A close devotee of the guru or the media manager in his organisation approaches the channels. The money to pay the channel may come from the guru’s organisation itself or from an ardent devotee, most often the latter. To twist Karl Marx a little, opium pays the hookah, and the masses are hooked. “He who has money is a sant today,” opines Rai.

Mohata of Sanskar, however, disagrees. “No one pays for going on air on our channel,” he claims. He goes on to add that “Sanskar only charges for shooting expenses and even that amount is usually returned to the sadhus.” He refuses to divulge any other details.

“I know that some people pay to get onto the channels. I also know that some channels even charge well known people,” says new age guru Jaya Row. “(But) I don’t believe in soliciting coverage,” she hastens to add. But a former volunteer of her Vedanta Vision Trust admits that her organisation too plays the pay-for-TV show game. “Even her satsangs and programmes are all sponsored by corporate houses. She does not pay out of her pocket,” the source tells us, on strict condition of anonymity.

But why pinpoint just her? It is common knowledge that most gurus and babas lean heavily on corporate backing. And media giants are responsible for creating many a new godman. Art of Living guru Sri Sri Ravi Shankar may be gracing newspaper headlines preaching from Poland to Papua New Guinea, but one of his close disciples has this to say: “When I was organising a satsang of our guru in Mumbai, I was approached by some channels and they did mention something about ad rates. Then it so happened that my peers from Bangalore organised it.” The guru himself, however, rubbishes claims of paying money to channels to cleanse a million lives of the grime of modern life.

But there are many who actually do want to tune in, turn on, and drop out of the banality of modern existence. And the idiot box holds the key to salvation. “I like to watch Aastha and Sanskar. I especially like Asaram Bapu’s discourses. His examples are very pertinent to our lives,” says 52-year-old housewife Vidya Palkar, who lives in Mumbai. Another Mumbaikar, 38-year-old Sudha Soni, says, “These programmes give me tremendous peace of mind.” And it’s not just housewives who are rediscovering spirituality through the telly. Prakash Mirpuri, a 38-year-old senior PR consultant, says, “I would not wake up at 6am to watch a spiritual programme. But if it’s on and it catches my attention, I tune into it. I draw comfort from it.” Twenty-seven-year old Reema Sen, a freelance designer from Kolkata who is now in Mumbai, turned to pranayam on TV after she suffered a slip disc. Her parents even sent her a yoga CD from Ramdevji Maharaj’s ashram in Haridwar. “I do believe that these techniques can help people,” she says.

Perhaps therein lies the raison de etre of these religious channels. Ours is a nation of believers. “India largely being a spiritual country, any channel catering to these needs will work,” says Rai. “There is a demand for spiritual content,” agrees Row. “There is a deep spiritual urge in every human being and the religious channels are catering to their needs,” opines Shankar.
The channel heads, too, portray a holier than thou attitude. “The whole aim of starting the channel was to root out the negatives. We are looking at lok kalyan (common good),” says Mehta. Sunil Machhar, one of the directors of Sanskar, claims his channel plays devotional songs to “help a housewife go about her work as she listens to some soulful melodies.” The jingle of the money must be an additional sweet music. “What’s the harm in making money? Why not pay for good things when you pay for bad? One needs money to reach out and if it’s being put to good use, then why not?” retorts Mehta.

DEVOTEE-SPEAK
Vidya Palkar, 52, Housewife:
“I like to watch Aastha and Sanskar. Asaram bapu ka pravachan bahut acchha lagta hai. His examples are very pertinent to day-to-day life.”

Rekha Kinariwala, 50, Housewife:
“I listen to mantras in the morning. I try to catch Dongre Maharaj’s lectures on the Bhagvad Gita over the weekends, as I am relatively free then. He tells us a lot of things. How much we follow depends entirely on our
devotional level.”

Sudha Soni, 38, Housewife:
“I don’t have any favourite gurus. I take what I want from each guru. I like this guru, Avdesh Giriji, who explains several meanings of a word. These programmes give me tremendous peace of mind.”

Prakash Mirpuri, 38, Senior PR Consultant:
“I would not wake up at 6 am to watch a spiritual programme. But if it’s on and it catches my attention, I tune into it. I draw comfort from it. Also there is a very fine line between fanaticism and spiritualism. But there is nothing to beat a live satsang.”

The money flow is good because most of these channels require minimum investment. Operating costs are borne by a steady stream of advertisers. Aastha, has PP Jewellers, Ajanta Quartz, Action, and Abil pharmaceuticals as its major advertisers. It is planning to go advertisement free by the end of this year. While it will remain free in India, it will convert itself into a pay channel abroad.

What about content regulation? After all, religion is the most potent weapon in a country where even religious processions involve heavy police interference. Who checks how truly saint-like the godmen are? “My wife, who is on the content regulation committee of the channel, checks every discourse before it goes on air and if a person is found to be a fraud he/she is taken off air,” says Mehta, an ardent follower of Jain guru Kirti Chandraji. He, however, refuses to disclose the names of the others in the content regulation committee. “Aastha was nominated in the niche channel category along with Discovery and Animal Planet at the IIFA awards last year,” he adds with evident pride.

In keeping with their squeaky-clean image, liquor and cigarette ads are a strict no no. Even ads showing non-vegetarian food are strictly banned. Once, when Aastha beamed an ad with a lady frying an egg, irate callers bombarded the channel. However one does find ads of tele-shopping networks where bikini-clad women claim you can lose fat by using a certain product. No one’s asking if that’s vegetarian.

That is perhaps, only the electronic reflection of the paradox of India. Even as we boast of IT, on the walls of a chai shop at 14,000 feet high in the Himalayas, you find a scribbled ad: -ve? Be +ve. Learn Yog, not Yoga. Call 23…. (Hrishikesh). To the world, we are the promised land of nirvana and instant karma. It would be foolish to expect it not to spill over into TV. Religious channels are only a manifestation of that spillover. Being a godman became an industry in the Sixties when the West wanted to rediscover spirituality. TV channels have just added turbo power to that industry.