Satellite Instructional Television Experiment or SITE
The Satellite Instructional Television Experiment or SITE was an experimental
satellite communications project launched in India in 1975.
It was designed jointly by NASA and the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO).
The project made available informational television programmes to rural India.
The joint experiment ran for one full year from 1 August 1975 to 31 July 1976 covering
more than 2500 villages in six Indian states.
The program was highly successful in that it was a tale of technological cooperation
between unfriendly democracies.
The experiment played a major role in helping India to develop its own satellite network
as part of its INSAT program.
At the same time, India was looking to launch its national space program under the
leadership of Vikram Sarabhai, considered as the Father of the Indian Space Program.
Between 18 November 1967 and 8 December 1967, UNESCO sent an expert mission to
India to prepare a report on a pilot project in the use of satellite communication.
The Indian government set up an inter-ministerial group called the National Satellite
Communications Group, or NASCOM group in 1968 to look into the possible uses of a
synchronous communications satellite for India.
This group consisted of representatives from various ministries, ISRO, All India Radio
(AIR). The group recommended that India should use the ATS-6 satellite for the
experiment.
The Indian Department of Atomic Energy and NASA signed an agreement for SITE in
1966. The experiment was launched on 1 August 1975.
Objectives
The objectives of the project were divided into two parts: general objectives and specific
objectives as per the Memorandum of Understanding signed between the two countries.
The general objectives of the project were to:
Gain experience in the development, testing and management of a satellite-
based instructional television system particularly in rural areas and to determine
optimal system parameters.
Demonstrate the potential value of satellite technology in the rapid development
of effective mass communications in developing countries.
Demonstrate the potential value of satellite broadcast TV in the practical
instruction of village inhabitants.
Stimulate national development in India, with important managerial, economic,
technological and social implications.
The primary general objectives from an Indian perspective were to educate the masses
about issues related to family planning, agricultural practices and national integration.
The secondary objectives were to impart general school and adult education, train
teachers, improve other occupational skills and to improve general health and hygiene
through the medium of satellite broadcasts. Besides these social objectives, India also
wanted to gain experience in all aspects of receivers, broadcast facilities and TV program
material.
The primary US objective was to test the design and functioning of an efficient, medium-
power, wide band space-borne FM transmitter, operating in the 800-900 MHz band and
gain experience on the utility of this space application.
Village selection
The direct reception receivers were installed in 2400 villages spread across the country in
6 areas.
Thus, SITE was launched in 20 districts covering six states of India — Rajasthan, Bihar,
Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka.
The villages for the experiment were chosen specifically for their backwardness by a
computer program designed by ISRO. This was done to study the potential of TV as a
medium for development.
Programming
All India Radio had the main responsibility for programme generation.
They were made in consultation with the government. Special committees on education,
agriculture, health and family planning indicated their own programme priorities.
Two types of programmes were prepared for broadcasting — educational television
(ETV) and instructional television (ITV).
The ETV programmes were meant for school-children and focussed on interesting and
creative educational programmes.
The ITV programmes were meant for adult audiences, most of them illiterate. These
covered incidents of national importance, improved practices in agriculture, health,
hygiene, family planning and nutrition.
The programmes were beamed for four hours daily in two transmissions.
The targeted audience was categorised into four linguistic groups - Hindi, Oriya, Telugu
and Kannada - and programmes were produced according to the language spoken in the
area.
End of SITE
After the year was up, NASA shifted its ATS satellite away from India. There were
demands from villagers and journalists to continue the revolutionary experiment, but
these were in vain. Even Arthur C. Clarke, who had been presented with a SITE
television set in Sri Lanka, pleaded with NASA to continue the experiment. But in the
end, the SITE program came to an end in July 1976.
Evaluation
The social research and evaluation of SITE was done by the special SITE Research and
Evaluation Cell under ISRO.
The REC consisted of around 100 persons located at the REC headquarters in
Ahmedabad, in each of the SITE clusters and also at the SITE studio in Bombay.
The research design was finalized by the SITE Social Science Research Co-ordination
Committee under the chairmanship of Dr. M. S. Gore, erstwhile Director of the Tata
Institute of Social Sciences in Bombay.
Impact on primary school children was studied under a joint project involving ISRO and
the NCERT.
The overall evaluation design was divided into three stages.
The first stage, the formative or input research, was a detailed study of the potential
audience.
The second stage, process evaluation, was the evaluation carried out during the life-time
of SITE. This evaluation provided information about the reaction of the villagers to
different programmes.
The third stage, the summative evaluation, involved a number of different studies to
measure the impact of SITE. These included the Impact Survey (Adults) to measure the
impact on adults, SITE Impact Survey Children (SIS-C) to measure the impact on school
children, and the qualitative anthropology study to measure change brought by TV in
rural structure at macro-level
Besides the social evaluation, a technical evaluation was also carried out to help India
develop future systems.
Each major sub-system of the earth system were tested and evaluated.
This was done using the spacecraft simulator from NASA, the Indian Ocean INTELSAT
spacecraft and finally using the ATS-6 satellite before SITE was launched.
All the components of the Direct Reception System including were thoroughly tested too.
The TV set was tested by the British Aircraft Corporation. Even the 3 meter antenna was
tested before arriving to a final design.
Data on failure rates was collected and analysis of the first 1800 failures was carried out
to help design future DRS systems.
Impact
The impact of the SITE transmissions was tremendous. For the entire year, hundreds and
thousands of villagers gathered around the television set and watched the shows. The
studies carried out concluded that the general interest and viewership was highest in the
first few months of the program (200 to 600 people per TV) and then declined gradually
(60 to 80 people per TV).
This was caused due to several factors like faulty television equipment, failure in
electricity supply, hardware defects and also due to the villagers' pre-occupation with
domestic or agricultural work.
But overall, the gain in the knowledge and attitude of the villagers was very high in the
field of agriculture and family planning
