Television is luring Asians to the city

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Across Asia, hundreds of millions of people are moving from villages and
farms to ever-expanding cities. Multiple forces conspire to draw them to the
urban jungle—hunger, employment, education—but television’s dream weaving
surely ranks among the most powerful. “Migration has always been fueled by
the desire to attain a better lifestyle, only now it has television as the
main stimulant,” says N. Bhaskar Rao, chairman of the New Delhi-based Center
for Media Studies.

The lure of the small screen is particularly strong in countries like India
and China, where hundreds of millions of people are watching in the
countryside. Almost half the 70 million TVs in India are located in rural
areas, where an average of 10 people watch each set. In China, 94 percent of
the population has access to a television now, and the average citizen
watches more than two hours a day.

Producers know their audience, and make plenty of shows about the poor
villager who goes to the big city and strikes it rich. In India the first of
these programs appeared in the 1980s on the state-run network. But it was
the arrival of satellite television in the 1990s that truly shook up life in
the countryside.

Source:
http://www.msnbc.com/news/978156.asp?cp1=1