Television

From The Peopling of New York City: Indian Communities

In New York, there are channels that cater to various immigrant communities. One channel that focuses on the New York community is NYC channel 73, which is an open air channel in the New York area. Its goal is to provide programming that caters to various groups of people within New York, and the Indian immigrant community is included. This channel broadcasts such shows as Namaste America.

WMBC is another channel that provides programming for various immigrant groups, such as Indians, Koreans, and Italians. For the Indian community, there are shows in Hindi and in English. Show Biz India, Namaste America and the Asian Variety Show are shows on WMBC that focus on music, news, films, and entertainment from India (WMBC-TV).Shows such as Show Biz India can ease the transition of moving to a foreign country, which can be difficult to adapt to. People can turn on the television in the comfort of their own home and watch interviews with their favorite Bollywood stars and even some stars from the United States.

For immigrants that are well off enough to pay for satellite television, they can purchase Hindi, Gujarati, Bangla, Kannada, Malayalam, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu, or Urdu programming (Dish network). Satellite television can bring television channels from India into the homes of Indian immigrants in the New York Community. This gives them a form of direct contact with their home country. The video below presents an advertisement for Indian programming on Dish Network as well as promotional posters for Bollywood films.

Narration of video: The films starts with an advertisement for Indian programming, and focuses on the Bollywood stars on the add and the Indian languages that Dish Network provides programming in. Focus then shifts to movie posters for various Bollywood films.