Television soap operas for development in India1

During the 19805, television audiences have expanded tremendously in such Third World nations as Mexico, Brazil, the People's Republic of China (Rogers and others, 1985), and India. For the first time, television broadcasting is reaching a sizeable audience in Third World countries: For example, approximately half of China's 1 billion population, and 80 million of India's 800 million people. These millions of new television viewers offer a huge potential audience for development communication messages. However, most television programming which is broadcast in, the Third World consists of entertainment, including imported reruns from the United States like 'I love Lucy', 'Kojak', and 'Dallas'.