Dear Daniel

Directly answering your question. Yes the commentator did tell the audience that
the tableau was in regard to IYA, but as it was a moving tableau it could not
have stayed more than 30 seconds on the screen. I saw the transmission on Delhi
network and on it the commentator only told about 3 lines on IYA and The
Ministry of Science and Technology. This could not have taken more than 30
seconds. The tableau did not have the IYA logo on it (at least on the side seen
on TV http://www.iiap.res.in/iya09/tableau.html ) It could have been easily
missed by any TV audience, as (I am sure others will agree on the following
point) I personally do not remember any other tableau from a large bunch that
were shown. If I did not have prier knowledge that IYA tableau would be show
cased I would have missed it completely.

Though I would like to inform you that many Indians do view the parade when it
is on TV, all major news channels also show the parade live when it happens, but
this does not mean everybody with a TV set views it. It is estimated that about
half of Indian population has access to TV and 700M is not half, it is more than
half the population of India. Though radio does reach more than 90% of the
population only about 33% of the people actually listen to it , I am not sure
what the radio said about the tableau when it came as I personally dint listen
to the radio transmission. If we go by what has been said in IYA report 3 in
every 4 people living in India were reached and should know about IYA, which
does not really seem to be entirely true.


But here I would also like to mention that many organisations genuinely worked
to make sure IYA reached the masses. Organizations like Vigyan Prasar(Directly
under minstry of Sc&T), and many not named in IYA final report worked a lot
during IYA.

Regards
Raghu



________________________________
From: "dfischer@..." <dfischer@...>
To: Astronomy_Activities_2009@yahoogroups.com
Cc: iya09ind@...
Sent: Sat, 11 September, 2010 9:35:33 PM
Subject: [Astronomy_Activities_2009] Statistics of the IYA 2009 in India


According to the final report on the International Year of Astronomy -
available as a huge PDF file with over 1300 pages at
http://www.astronomy2009.org/resources/documents/detail/iya2009_final_report
- the "number of people reached by IYA 2009" in India is a staggering
710,244,200, 60 times more than in any other country and 8 times more than
in *all* other 147 IYA-participating countries *combined* (see pages 680
and 1296-8).

It turns out that 700 of the 710 million Indians allegedly "reached" by
the IYA are the complete estimated TV audience of the 26 Jan 2009 Republic
Day parade - where *one* of numerous tableus displayed telescope models
and astronomy pictures though not, at least prominently, the IYA logo (see
the image on page 681 or the links from
http://astrojahr.blogspot.com/2009/01/der-berliner-kick-off-in-bild-film-und.htm\
l

after "Im Ausland fuhr in Indien ...").

In order to put the 700 million figure (which contributes the lion's share
to the 815 million people allegedly affected by the IYA worldwide through
all of 2009) in perspective, I would like to know from those who watched
TV coverage of the 2009 parade: When the IYA-inspired tableu was in view
of the cameras, did the commentator explain *clearly* to the TV audience
that this was about the IYA which had just begun? For how many
seconds/minutes was the tableu seen in the transmission, i.e. how easily
could it be missed? And how reliable is the "700 million" TV audience
anyway? It seems enormously huge, even for a country of 1.2 billion. Given
the number of channels now, it would be quite easy to watch something
else, even when watching TV at the time - or did most channels carry the
parade live?

Thanks and regards,

Daniel Fischer
IYA committee of Germany






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