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History
Experimentation with radio in India began in 1915. Broadcasting began in India with the formation of a private radio service in Madras in 1924. In the same year, the British colonial government granted a license to a private company, the Indian Broadcasting Company, to open Radio stations in Bombay and Calcutta. The company went bankrupt in 1930 but the colonial government took over the two transmitters and the Department of Labor and Industries started operating them as the Indian State Broadcasting Corporation. In 1936, the Corporation was renamed All India Radio (AIR) and placed under the Department of Communications. When India became independent in 1947, AIR was made a separate Department under the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. AIR was officially renamed to Akashwani in 1957. This name was given by Late Pandit Narendra Sharma a noted lyricist and renowned Hindi poet. however all English usage refers to it as All India Radio.
In the era of government control, All India Radio was known for taking an overwhelmingly pro-government line. Indira Gandhi famously stated in 1975 that All India Radio is "a Government organ, it is going to remain a Government organ..."[1]
Despite the growth of private radio channels since the 1990s, All India Radio (AIR) remains a popular media resource, being accessible even in the remotest parts of the country.
Coverage
The All India Radio website claims that the station reaches 99.37% of India's populace of over one billioncitation needed. AIR maintains approximately 225 broadcasting centres around the country including one in the capital of every state, a total of 384 channels and transmits in 24 different languages and dialects. In spite of recent penetration by other media such as Cable TV, AIR remains the most common means of gaining access to information and entertainment, as the radio receivers are relatively cheap and affordable. AIR today has a network of 229 broadcasting centres with 148 medium frequency(MW), 54 high frequency (SW) and 168 FM transmitters. The coverage is 91.79% of the area , serving 99.14% of the people in the largest democracy of the world. AIR covers 24 Languages and 146 dialects in home services. In Externel services, it covers 27 languages; 17 national and 10 foreign languages
AIR in popular Culture
Broadcasting House is an old building next to Akashwani Bhavan. The News Service Division of All India Radio under the Director General (New) functions from this building. Built during the British rule, it is a very popular location and easily recognised building in New Delhi.
Several scenes of Dil Se, a popular Bollywood film starring Shahrukh Khan, were shot in and around this building; in the film Khan plays a reporter for All India Radio. All India Radio also featured prominently in the film Rang De Basanti.
In 1997, the British band Cornershop paid tribute to All India Radio (with the lyric, "All India Radio, 45") in their tribute song to famous Bollywood playback singer Asha Bhosle, Brimful of Asha, an international hit which was later remixed by Fatboy Slim.
Services
AIR has many different services each catering to different regions/languages across India. One of the most famous services of the AIR is the Vividh Bharati Seva (roughly translating to "Multi-Indian service"). This service is the most commercial of all and is popular in Mumbai and other cities of India. This service offers a wide range of programmes including news, film music, comedy shows, etc. The Vividh Bharti service operates on different MW band frequencies for each city as shown below.
Some programs broadcast on the Vividh Bharti:
- Hawa-mahal - Skit based on some novels/plays.
- Santogen ki mehfil - Jokes & humour.
The following is a partial list of AIR services.
North regional service
- Agra 1530 kHz
- Allahabad 1026 kHz
- Delhi 'Indraprastha' 819 kHz
- Delhi 'Rajdhani' 666 kHz
- Delhi 'D' 1017 kHz
- Jaipur 'A' 1476 kHz
- Jalandhar 'A' 873 kHz
- Jammu 'A' 990 kHz
- Jodhpur 'A' 531 kHz
- Lucknow 'A' 747 kHz
- Srinagar 'A' 1116 kHz
- Varanasi 'A' 1242 kHz
East regional service
- Bhagalpur 1458 kHz
- Cuttack 'A' 972 kHz
- Darbhanga 1296 kHz
- Jamshedpur 1584 kHz
- Kolkata 'A' 657 kHz
- Kolkata 'B' 1008 kHz
- Kolkata 'C' 1323 kHz
- Patna 'A' 621 kHz
- Ranchi 'A' 549 kHz
- AIR FM Kolkata has two stations 107FM Rainbow and 100.2FM Gold.
These stations broadcast live programmes in Bangla, English and Hindi. See http://kolkatarjratings.blogspot.com
North-east regional service
- Agartala 1269 kHz
- Guwahati 'A' 729 kHz
- Shillong 864 kHz
West regional service
- Ahmedabad 'A' 846 kHz
- Aurangabad 1521 kHz
- Bhopal 'A' 1593 kHz
- Gwalior 1386 kHz
- Indore 'A' 648 kHz
- Jalgaon 963 kHz
- Mumbai 'A' 1044 kHz
- Mumbai 'B' 558 kHz
- Nagpur 'A' 585 kHz
- Panaji 'A' 1287 kHz
- Pune 'A' 792 kHz
- Rajkot 'A' 810 kHz
- Ratnagiri 1143 kHz
- Sholapur 1602 kHz
- Sangli 1251 kHz
South regional service
- Adilabad 1485 kHz
- Bangalore 'A' 612 kHz
- Chennai 'A' 720 kHz
- Gulbarga 1107 kHz
- Hyderabad 'A' 738 kHz
- Hyderabad 'B' 1377 kHz
- Kozhikode 'A' 684 kHz
- Madurai 1269 kHz
- Ootakamund 1602 kHz
- Pondicherry 1215 kHz
- Port Blair 684 kHz
- Thiruvananthapuram 'A' 1161 kHz
- Tiruchirapalli 'A' 936 kHz
- Vijayawada 'A' 837 kHz
- Visakhapatnam 927 kHz
Vividh Bharati service
- Chennai 'C' 783 kHz
- Cuttack 'B' 1314 kHz
- Delhi 'C' 1368 kHz
- Hyderabad 'C 102.8 MHz
- Jalandhar 'C' 1350 kHz
- Kanpur 1449 kHz
- Kolkata 'C' 1323 kHz
- Lucknow 'C' 1278 kHz
- Mumbai 'C' 1188 kHz
- Panaji 'B' 1539 kHz
- Varanasi 'B' 1602 kHz
- Varanasi FM' 100.6 MHz
- Vijayawada 'B' 1503 kHz
- Vividh Bharati' 9870 kHz / Power: 500 kW / Broadcasting from Mumbai Studios: 0025-0435 + 0900-1200 + 1245-1740 UTC. The best Hindustani (Hindi-Urdu-Mix) Program in the whole World.
External services
The External Services Division of All India Radio broadcasts in 27 languages to countries outside of India, primarily by high powered short wave broadcasts although medium wave is also used to reach neighbouring countries. In addition to broadcasts targeted at specific countries by language there is a General Overseas Service which broadcasts in English with 8 1/4 hours of programming each day and is aimed at a general international audience.
Yuv-vani: The voice of youth
The Yuv-vani service of AIR provides an enriching and novel radio-experience by encouraging youth participation and experimenting with varied script ideas.It is broadcast at 1017 kHz which corresponds to 294.9 meter. Its Broadcast begins every evening at 7 pm. With shows like "Mehfil", "In the groove" and "The Roving Microphone" which have been around for more than three decades, Yuv-vani still holds a firm ground of its own.
Some of the big names on the Indian media scene began their journey with Yuv-vani. Comments Praful Thakkar, a well known documentary maker - "Yuv-vani came as a breath of fresh air in our reckless college days. It was a great learning experience for me and it made me realize that radio is not all about goofy quotes and PJs."
Some of the other names that have been associated with Yuv-vani in the past include Celebrity game show host Roshan Abbas, VJ Gaurav Kapoor, DJ Kaushal Khanna and DJ Pratham among others.
News-on-phone service
All India Radio, after launching the news-on-phone service on 25 February 1998 from New Delhi, is running the service from Chennai, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Patna and Bangalore also. The service is accessible through STD, ISD and local telephone calls. The service is going to be started from 9 more cities — Ahmedabad, Guwahati, Imphal, Jaipur, Kolkata, Lucknow, Raipur, Simla and Thiruvanthapuram shortly.
English and Hindi hourly news bulletins can be heard live on http://www.newsonair.com. The news in MP3 format can be directly played from the site. In the file name the hourly time of news is mentioned. Text of the English and Hindi bulletins can be read from http://www.newsonair.com/BulletinsInd.html.
AIR news bulletins are available in 9 regional languages (Tamil, Kannada, Gujarati, Bengali, Marathi, North East, Punjabi, Telugu, Urdu) from http://www.newsonair.com/index_regional.htm.
External links
- Vividh Bharati's Online Radio Station
- All India Radio web-site
- AIR's Frequency schedule
- Hindi RadioWorld
- Indian Radio Stations Worldwide
- Children's wing of All India Radio
Trivia
- Vividh Bharati celebrated its Golden Jubilee on 3 October 2007.
- Vividh Bharati has the only comprehensive database of songs from the so termed "Golden Era" of Hindi film music (roughly from 1940s to 1980s).
- Test transmitions from the stations led some to believe AIR was a numbers station.
References
- ^ People's Union for Civil Liberties (July 1982). "Freedom of the Press". PUCL Bulletin.
- ^ People's Union for Civil Liberties (July 1982). "Freedom of the Press". PUCL Bulletin.
2. Broadcasters and Writers for AIR Lucknow: Swapnil Bhartiya
