The Entwined Nexus: Television, Caste, and Media Capital in the Telugu States

This article critically reviews Srinivas Panthukala’s Media Capital: The Political Economy of 24/7 Television News in the Telugu States (2025) examines how television news in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana evolved into a sophisticated political and commercial institution. The book argues that the rise of 24/7 television news in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana cannot be understood merely through media liberalization or market competition. Instead, the regional media landscape is structurally shaped by caste hierarchies, capital accumulation, and party-political strategies. Panthukala demonstrates that dominant agrarian-capitalist castes, particularly Reddys, Kammas, and Velamas channeled surplus capital into television news following economic liberalization in the 1990s . Media ownership thus became embedded within caste-political patronage networks, transforming news channels into instruments of ideological consolidation rather than autonomous watchdog institutions. Through detailed institutional mapping, the study highlights ownership structures, party alignments, and patterns of vertical and horizontal integration that reinforce media capture. The book further contends that sensationalism, polarized debates, and personality-centric programming are not merely products of commercial competition but serve partisan and caste interests. By tracing the shift from Doordarshan’s monopoly to competitive satellite broadcasting, Panthukala connects broader transformations in Indian media to the consolidation of regional bourgeois power. Although limited by its temporal scope, which ends around 2014, the study offers a foundational regional political economy framework. It demonstrates how television news in the Telugu states functions as a hegemonic apparatus reproducing caste dominance, political legitimacy, and capitalist accumulation.