{"id":3487,"date":"2003-09-12T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2003-09-12T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/2003\/09\/12\/2003-09-12-religion-s-a-hit-on-indian-tv\/"},"modified":"2003-09-12T12:00:00","modified_gmt":"2003-09-12T12:00:00","slug":"2003-09-12-religion-s-a-hit-on-indian-tv","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/2003\/09\/12\/2003-09-12-religion-s-a-hit-on-indian-tv\/","title":{"rendered":"Religion&#8217;s a Hit on Indian TV"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a HREF=\"http:\/\/sify.com\/news\/othernews\/fullstory.php?id=13242354&#038;vsv=39\">Source<\/a><\/P><P>NEW DELHI, INDIA, September 4, 2003: Private television networks are turning to religion to tap a massive Hindu viewership, but say the religious channels are neither a platform to grab votes nor an attempt to peddle faith. TV channels like Aastha and Sanskar beam 24-hour religious programs to millions of homes, especially in states like Gujarat, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh. &#8220;India is a democracy, and we are free to air religious opinions and discourses by learned gurus. But we do not have any political content in our programming,&#8221; said Lalit Purohit, marketing chief of Sanskar TV. &#8220;We do not have any stand on issues like the Babri mosque or Ayodhya temple,&#8221; added Purohit. &#8220;We stay clear of all such issues.&#8221; Aastha says on its official website that it eschews politics and its &#8220;chaste blissful viewing&#8221; only portrays India&#8217;s &#8220;strong heritage which has sustained and outlived various onslaughts while emerging stronger.&#8221; &#8220;Today, when the whole world is under the dark clouds of terrorism, spirituality is the only flame that can throw light on world peace and hope,&#8221; said Santosh Kumar Jain, director of Aastha TV in a statement. &#8220;I am glad that the Aastha channel is playing an inspiring role. &#8220;These religious channels are not purveying a militant Hindu line or polarization of Indian society. There is no evidence of a party or ideological line,&#8221; said Iqbal Malhotra, director of Delhi-based AIM Television. &#8220;There is a revival of spiritualism both in India and abroad. These niche channels are tapping into a lucrative market where there is a search for blending Eastern spiritualism with Western precepts.&#8221; <BR><br \/>\n<\/P> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SourceNEW DELHI, INDIA, September 4, 2003: Private television networks are turning to religion to tap a massive Hindu viewership, but,&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3487","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3487","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3487"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3487\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}