Shift from newspapers to TV

Deccan Herald in its edit page carried an insightful article on "The Fourth World" links. According to NRS 2006, the country's 230 million TV viewers (in 112 m TV homes) now exceed its 203.6 million newspaper readers, while the number of cinema-goers has declined from 51 million to 39 million a month. FM radio listeners now total 119 million. Indian language newspaper readership is fast growing, especially in the Hindi belt, while the comparable figure for English dailies has been stagnating around 21 million.

For me the figures reflect an unhealthy development. Why is TV viewership increasing? Does it reflect lack of investment of time in reading or is it the advancement of technology so much so that news is better viewed than read? Quite startling is the fact that readership of english dailies has been stagnating, which makes me even more skeptical about the declining reading habits.Worse, what happens when an increasing number of people shift to news on the move? Imagine the complexity of controlling messages being disseminated...