Today, TV channels broadcast men’s sports shows more than women’s sport shows. Why is this case? Should TV channels give equal showtime for each?
Television has brought sports to the living rooms of households, but even so it has been blamed for ignoring the events that feature female athletes and prioritizing male events despite being backed by several plausible attributes. This has led to voices in support of blurring the differences.
The reason for this bias is quite conspicuous: the male branch of sports has humongous fan-following that is lacking in the case of the female domain. Therefore, it is natural for the television broadcasting companies to favor the more popular events since it can help fetch colossal viewership - that is populated by both the genders - and also sumptuous profits. However, this is not possible in the events that are participated by girls. To corroborate, the outcomes of a survey by a magazine called Stern revealed that most of the media houses and sports channels aimed at tapping and covering those areas and disciplines where the chances of earnings were abundant. That is the reason why the FIFA world cup of the males gets more airtime than the world championship of females.
However, the demand for TV granting more showtime to female sporting events is quite warranted: this will aid in empowerment of women. It has been observed that due to the conservative attitudes of society, females are unable to earn their deserving dues, and if the onus of emancipating women is shared by television by telecasting more and more sporting events that feature women, the latter will get a chance to break their stereotype since sports provides a way to liberation.
Overall, commercial compulsion is the fundamental foundation for the apathy of television towards women sports, but this needs to change and more time slots be allocated to this branch: it will assist in diluting gender differences.
