9 January 2013 Last updated at 07:28 ET

India profile

• Overview
• Facts
• Leaders
• Media
• Timeline
• In pictures

India has a growing media industry with several newspapers and TV channels in many languages

Indian broadcasting is flourishing and TV and radio outlets are proliferating.

India has more than 150 million TV homes, of which 25% use direct-to-home satellite and 51% receive cable TV. The government plans to digitise all TV transmissions by December 2014.

There are more than 700 TV channels. News programmes often outperform entertainment output. There is an array of 24-hour news TV stations.

Doordarshan, the public TV, operates multiple services, including flagship DD1, which reaches some 400 million viewers.

Multichannel, direct-to-home (DTH) satellite TV is a huge hit. Major platforms Dish TV, Tata-Sky, Sun Direct, Big TV and Airtel Digital TV have millions of subscribers. State-owned Doordarshan Direct runs a free-to-air DTH service.

Music-based FM radio stations abound. But only public All India Radio can produce news programming.

India's press is lively. Driven by a growing middle class, newspaper circulation has risen and new titles compete with established dailies.

Journalists operating in areas with armed conflicts do not enjoy the same protections as those in the rest of India, says Reporters Without Borders (RSF).

India online

Around 137 million Indians were online by June 2012 (Internetworldstats.com). The online revolution has largely bypassed rural India, a government study has shown.

There is no systematic filtering of the web. But in late 2011, the authorities were embroiled in a dispute with leading social networks over censorship of content deemed to be offensive.

The tussle, which involved the courts, pitted the government against Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Yahoo! and YouTube, among other platforms.

Rules require internet companies to remove "disparaging" or "blasphemous" content if they receive a complaint from an "affected person".

RSF argues that requiring sites to remove all offensive material "is an impossible task". It has urged the government not to enact "repressive" legislation.

Press

• The Times of India - Mumbai-based daily
• The Hindu - Chennai-based daily
• The Hindustan Times - New Delhi-based daily
• The Pioneer - New Delhi-based daily
• The Indian Express - New Delhi-based daily
• The Statesman - Kolkata-based daily
• Deccan Herald - Bangalore-based daily
• The Asian Age - New Delhi-based daily
• India Today - New Delhi-based news magazine
• Outlook - New Delhi-based news magazine

Television

• Doordarshan - public TV; operates national, regional, local and satellite services
• CNN-IBN - 24-hour news channel in English, partially owned by CNN's parent, Turner International
• New Delhi TV (NDTV) - operates NDTV 24x7 and NDTV-India news channels in English and Hindi
• Star TV - operates satellite, cable TV services, owned by News Corporation
• Zee TV - satellite, cable TV services operated by Zee Group
• Sony Entertainment TV - commercial channel
• Aaj Tak - 24-hour news channel in Hindi, owned by India Today magazine group

Radio

• All India Radio - public, operates domestic and external networks
• Radio One - commercial radio network in six big cities
• Radio Mirchi - commercial network, stations in Mumbai, Delhi and other cities, mainly music, operated by The Times Group
• Radio City - commercial, FM stations in Delhi, Mumbai and other cities, owned by News Corporation
• Red FM - commercial, operated by India Today Group

News agencies

• Press Trust of India (PTI) - non-profit, owned by newspaper titles
• Asian News International (ANI) - commercial, privately-owned multimedia news agency