Thursday, February 24, 2011

Television in India…

I’ve had several people ask me about TV here.  Do you have channels in English?  Do you watch the news there?  Do you have cable?  What about movie channels? 

We have satellite and similar to home, our installation date was set up for a Tuesday but didn’t take place until three days later.  Also, like home, there are hundreds of channels to choose from.  Well, hundreds if you understand Hindi or Marathi.  We had to pay for the English package which gives us just over twenty channels, almost half of which play movies.

We have TCM and MGM with mainly black and white classics.  There are two ‘world’ channels that play films from…you guessed it, around the world; and some of them are in English.  Most of the newer movies we get have already been out in the U.S. for quite some time.  There are, of course, the ones that aren’t being shown in the states anymore.  Or should I say won’t be shown again until around Thanksgiving:
Yes, Christmas with the Kranks, The Christmas List and Snow Globe really need to be removed from the line up here.

As far as TV series, we’ve been able to catch up with a few that we hadn’t seen before.  Though I’m a huge Dexter fan, Paul hadn’t watched it before.  They did a marathon over several weekends and now he’s up to speed.  One of the shows I’d never seen but wanted to is Mad Men.  I’m now midway through the third season.  We’ve also been watching the first season of Master Chef America, which is on every weeknight at 9:00 pm, so if you watched it, don’t tell me who wins!  That goes for Last Comic Standing as well.  American Idol is on five days after it airs in the U.S. and The Academy Awards will be live.  Of course I’ll have to get up at 6:00 am to watch; 4:30 if I want to see the Red Carpet. 

There are also some Indian programs I watch on TLC, which is not The Learning Channel, but Travel and Living Channel.  I do enjoy watching HOMP (Highway on my Plate) on NDTV Good Times.  It’s a reality show with two guys traveling around India and checking out different areas and their local cuisine.  We also get BBC Entertainment and BBC Animal Planet.

I don’t really watch any news here; partly because I’m not familiar with what’s being talked about, but mainly because I have a hard understanding them.  As far as watching sports, I don’t.  If I did my choices would be Cricket, Cricket or Cricket.

Commercial breaks don’t seem to be as frequent as they are in the states, but they’re longer.  And it is not uncommon to see the same commercial 2-3 times during one break.  Some of them are in English, some Hindi and others a mix of both.  Some are sophisticated, some strange, but quite a few are done with a sense of humor.
One thing I’ve mentioned before is the fact that most of the channels that are in English are also subtitled…in English.  It can be distracting, but usually quite funny, because the words on the screen don’t always match what is being said.  The other day I was watching something and ‘dirty bastard’ was part of the dialog, however ‘unclean basket’ is what I read.

3 comments:

Blondefabulous said...

I remember a long way back when My sister was stationed in Germany, she would tell me that their TV was months, sometimes YEARS behind us in the states. I always thought she was exaggerating till we were talking on the phone and she started telling me about this gross new cartoon with a chihuahua and a fat red cat singing Happy Happy, Joy Joy and talking to farts. It took me a minute to figure out she meant Ren & Stimpy, a show that had been on for 3 years already in the US!!! I hope you enjoy movies!!

hello haha narf said...

i can hardly fathom what i could accomplish if i had your television options...all the free time i would suddenly find!

Coal Miner's Granddaughter said...

I would have great difficulty adjusting to the lack of Mythbusters/Ghost Hunters/Real Housewives. Like any addict, I would probably go through a period of violent withdrawal, but would come out the other side OK and none the worse for wear.

Awesome commercial, BTW. :D