EFFECTIVENESS OF AGRICULTURAL PROGRAMMES ON TELEVISION AS PERCEIVED BY TELEVIEWING FARMERS IN CHITTOOR DISTRICT OF ANDHRA PRADESH

The present study was undertaken with the main objective of assessing the effectiveness of agricultural programmes of different channels as perceived by the televiewing farmers. Before and After research design was followed in the present investigation. The study was conducted in Tirupathi mandal, Chittoor district which were selected purposively. The data were collected randomly by talking personally interview of 120 televiewers. The data was collected by personal interview method through structured interview schedule. Majority of the respondents were middle aged, had medium level of education, medium farming experience, medium land holding, medium level of extension contact, mass media exposure, economic orientation, achievement motivation and innovativeness. Majority of the respondents had perception of televiewing farmers of different channels with respect to components of effectiveness, namely understandability, usefulness, demonstration mode of presentation, entertainment and relevancy of pictures. “Time duration is not sufficient”, “Telecast time is not convenient”, “Telecast programmes are useful to the farming community” and “Telecast programme are drawing attention of the farmers to bring awareness on new technology” were the major reactions of the respondents. Telecast time need to be changed from 6:00am-7.00am and 7.00pm-9.00pm, all programmes should be telecasted should be telecasted daily, information on the schedule of the topics to be telecasted in the telecasted in the consecutive week should be advertised at the starting of the week, separate television channel is required to telecast agriculture related activities.