ABSTRACT
The privatization of the Indian skies in 1991 opened up a public debate on the new media that converged on the cultural invasion argument. This chapter compares the content of a global music television channel and a local one – MTV and ETC Punjabi – to examine the impact of transnational television and satellite technologies on the monopolistic control of national television in cultural definition and diffusion. The content and presentation of ETC Punjabi is clearly designed with an imagined Panjabi audience in mind. In contrast to the Eurocentric or Hindi dominated universe of MTV and ETC Hindi, ETC Punjabi inscribes a Panjab-centric universe. In its marginalization of English and Hindi, ETC Punjabi makes vilayeti and desi Bhangra appear like poor imitations of traditional Bhangra. ETC Punjabi presents a performance space in which music and other cultural practices are coopted in the production of Panjabi tradition.
