India - Hum Log

Produced by Doordarshan TV - India with technical assistance from PCI

Program Summary: A training program organized by PCI founder, David Poindexter for Doordarshan (Indian TV) in the early 80's enabled the local production and broadcast of the wildly successful program Hum Log ("We People"), India's first social content soap opera. At the end of every episode, appropriate guides for community and individual action were provided in a summary by a famous actor. The program included promotion of family planning and elevation of the status of women through the words and actions of key characters.

The show was broadcast in Hindi for 17 months in 1984-85. Ratings indicated that the show was watched by 60-90% of all Indian households with a television with an average viewing audience of 50 million people per episode. Hum Log is credited with contributing to the expansion of television ownership in the early 80s, where only an estimated 10% of India's 800 million people owned televisions in 1987.

Issues Covered: Women's fertility and status, family disharmony, moral development, national integration , family planning, Alcoholism, Urbanization, national welfare programs.

Social Impact: 70 percent of the viewers indicated they had learned from Hum Log that women should have equal opportunities, 68 percent had learned women should have the freedom to make their personal decisions in life, and 71 percent had learned that family size should be limited.

• Among other things, the program stimulated over 400,000 people to write letters to the Indian Television Authority and to various characters in the program, stating their views on the issues being dealt with or asking for help and advice.
• In North India, ratings were in the range of 65 to 90%. In South India ratings were between 20 and 40% (non-Hindi speaking). 96% of respondents liked “Hum Log”, 94% thought it was entertaining, 83% thought it was educational, and 91% said it addressed social problems.
• 83% of a sample of 500 letters liked and respected the dialogue given at the end of the show, 39% said they felt it helped them make various decisions.
• 53% of respondents believed in copying positive role models identified in “Hum Log”, 23% believed in copying negative role models. 70% believed that women should have equal opportunities, 71% said that family size should be limited, 64% thought women's welfare programs should be encouraged. 33% of the sample of 500 letters had their social attitudes influenced by the show.
• Of the sample of 500 letters, 92% were influenced in a pro-social direction, 7% showed behavioral change as a result of the show. For example, there was an increase in the number of people signing up to give eye donations, due to a story line where the grandmother had eye cancer.
• Hum Log also had other effects. It was the first commercially sponsored program on Indian television. Hum Log's popularity, and the increased sales of Maggi 2-Minute Noodles, the advertised product, convinced many other advertisers to sponsor television programs. This led to an increase in locally produced television serials and encouraged the Indian film industry to become more involved in television production

Sources: Effects of "Hum Log", A Television Soap Opera, On Women's Status and Fertility in India, by Arvind Singhal, Everett M. Rogers, and Michael D. Cozzens.

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