In the early days of indian television news anchors were major stars. They were often good-looking, well dressed and had stylish accents. In those days, the 70s & 80s fewer people had television sets and the only channel available was Doordarshan.
The news on Doordarshan was our link to the whole wide world. If you consider the 70s tv was black & white and people were simple & uncomplicated. The news anchors were considered huge celebrities. To appear on tv was grand & to be a news anchor even grander.In those times anchors were grandiose show offs.They read the news as if they were doing the audience a great favour.
They talked down to the audience & the people accepted them as such.With the 1982 asiad came colour and then the national network.There were newscasts in the late evening then, in hindi at 9 pm & in english at 10.That was the age of colour & the newscasters like Salma Sultan, Avinash Kaur, Chaman Bagga etc in Hindi & Neethi Ravindran, Meenu, Pankaj Mohan & many others were still considered glamorous & important people.
The style of newsreading did change, the anchors were more respectful towards their still captive audience. But then in the nineties satellite tv happened.And in 1998, 24 hour news channels made their appearance. There were new stars on the horizon, Vikram Chandra, Rajdeep Sardesai and who can forget Arnab Goswami all started life at NDTV.These anchors were aware of the fact that the people who saw their news were educated & probably rich. They treated their audience with respect.These days Times Now is the leading news channel. The current & the correct newsreading style puts the viewer at the centre of the newsreading universe. He/She is the most important person to the newsmaking company and the job of the anchor is to keep him pleased at all times.