RADIO CONTENT IN DIGITAL AGE

DIFFERENCE IN RADIO CONTENT FROM PRIOR TO INDEPENDENCE TO NOW

Content

Genre

Modes/Channels

Format/Type of Programmes

Audience for radio

Techniques

CHANGE IN CONTENT

To discuss the change in Radio Content lets first discuss the origin and evolution of radio in India right from Prior to Independence to today. Simultaneously we will be able to study how the position and content of radio kept on changing.

ORIGIN OF RADIO IN INDIA

Establishment of the first licensed amateur

radio in 1921

Role of radio in Indian Independence

Illegal pro-independence radio stations in

1940’s

Advent of AIR

Advent of Private Radio FM Channels

PRIOR TO INDEPENDENCE Prior to independence, Amateur radio was used by the freedom

fighters to broadcast uncensored information to common man.

Several got arrested and their license was shut. They used it for

exchange of information.

Congress activists use it to exchange information with the grass

root workers in Mumbai. It was called as Azad Hind Radio.

Subhash Chandra Bose while broadcasting on it use to call it

Anti Indian Radio.

Radio played a great role even during independence. It helped

to deliver important announcements and speeches in the form

of news.

So the content of the radio was only for political purpose since

independence was the most prime issue then. There were no

commercials and no entertainment.

• The first broadcasting Service began in 1927 in Mumbai and Kolkata called as

Indian State Broadcasting Company Ltd.

• In 1930 this company got bankrupted and it constituted under Department of

‘Controller of Broadcasts’.

• Later in June, 1936 it was renamed as ‘All India Radio’ or ‘Akashwani’ and

Commercials became a part of all the other radio programmes.

• Akashwani is a government-owned, semi -commercial operation of the Ministry

of Information and Broadcasting.

• Along with Commercials, classical music also got its existence among the

programmes. Now classical music was also broadcasted.

• So All India Radio came up with objective to inform, educate about the political,

economic and social development and entertain the mass.

ALL INDIA RADIO AFTER INDEPENDENCE

• When India attained Independence in 1947, AIR had a network of six

stations and 18 transmitters. The coverage was 2.5 % of the area and

just 11% of the population.

• Congress Govt. headed by Jawaharlal Nehru had three major goals-

political integration, economic development and social modernization.

So all the National affairs and social changes were informed to the mass

through Radio.

• Indian Radio took birth and was promoted by the government at its best

for the objective of political nation building. National integration and

the development of a "national consciousness" happened to be the

primary objective of All India Radio.

In 1957 All India Radio came up with a new Commercial radio service called as

“Vividh Bharti” with its headquarters at Mumbai.

The motive behind the launching of this Commercial service was:

a.) earn revenues through extensive advertisement

b.) Akashwani use to play only classical music which was meant for a particular

class of people. It didn’t gave space to the songs of Bollywood Movies which was in

more demand. Radio Ceylon was the only foreign radio channel which provided this

facility. So Vividh Bharti was the need to entertain all sections of mass with Hindi

movie songs.

Vividh Bharti started broadcasting its programmes mainly from Mumbai and

Chennai. These two cities were selected for geographical reasons.

The service provided entertainment for nearly 15 to 17 hours a day. It presents a mix

of film music, skits, short plays and interactive . programmes

Programmes broadcasted were talk shows, interviews, phone to viewers and health and

hygiene related shows, agricultural programmes and rural development.

Some of the old popular programmes of Vividh Bharati are 'Sangeet Sargam', 'Bhule

Bisre Geet', ‘Hawa Mahal', 'Jaimala', 'Inse Miliye', ‘Chhaya Geet' ETC., are still

distinctly recongnised by the listeners. From time to time new programmes were

introduced like ‘Biscope Ke Batein', ‘Sargam Ke Sitare', ‘Celluloid Ke Sitare',

‘Sehatnama', &' Hello Farmaish'.

40 Vividh Bharati stations across the country down-linked these programmes through

captive earth stations provided at each of these AIR stations.

Some local programme windows are also provided at these stations to give regional

flavour to the listeners. These 40 Vividh Bharati stations are known as Vigyapan Prasaran

Seva ,the Commercial Broadcasting Service Stations and are located at all major and

commercially vibrant cities covering 97% of the Indian population.

With the advent of new technology the transmission of programmes gradually migrated

from earlier medium wave transmission to high quality digital stereo FM. Commercials

were introduced initially in the Vividh Bharati Service in the year 1967 on an

experimental basis.

STATUS OF RADIO BROADCASTING AFTER 1990

Emergence of Prasar Bharati : The Parliament of India passed an Act to grant this autonomy in

1990, but it was not enacted until September 15,1997.It was an autonomous body of Ministry

of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India comprising of Doordarshan Television

Network and All India Radio.

Advent of FM Radio Channels : In the mid-nineties, when India first experimented with private

FM broadcasts, the small tourist Destination of Goa was the fifth place in this country of one

billion where private players got FM slots. The other four centres were the big metro cities:

Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai. These were followed by stations in Bangalore,

Hyderabad, Jaipur and Lucknow.

Listenership has increased in certain urban areas due to the time allotment of the private FM

radio channel.

Film and other popular music constituted the main curriculum of such stations contributing to

an increase in commercial time and thus earn advertising revenues from Rs. 527 million in

1992 to Rs.809 million in 1996.

News in not permitted on private FM, although the federal minister says this may

be reconsidered in two to three years. Nationally, many of the current FM players,

including the Times of India, Hindustan Times, Mid-Day, and BBC are essentially

newspaper chains or media, and they are already making a strong pitch for news on

FM.

All India Radio also got converted itself to FM and launched two more FM

channels in Kolkata namely 107FM Rainbow and 100.2FM Gold.

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 — Ahmadabad, Guwahati, Imphal, Jaipur, Kolkata, Lucknow, Raipur, Simla

and Thiruvanthapuram shortly.

CHANGE IN THE CONTENT OF RADIO WITH CHANGE IN

TECHNOLOGY

21ST CENTURY DEVELOPMENT

Internet Radio: It consists of sending radio-style audio programming over streaming Internet connections. No radio transmitters need be involved at any point in the process. AIR also launched its online radio service from January 2009.

Digital Audio Broadcasting: It is a digital radio technology for broadcasting radio stations, used in several countries including India.

Traditionally radio programmes were broadcast on different frequencies via FM and AM, and the radio had to be tuned into each frequency. This used up a comparatively large amount of spectrum for a relatively small number of stations, limiting listening choice. DAB is a digital radio broadcasting system that through the application of multiplexing and compression combines multiple audio streams onto a single broadcast frequency called a DAB ensemble.

Online Music Services: Online music services usually offers millions of songs and thousands of artists for users to choose from.Network music player that supports online music services lets user access this vast selection of music tracks.Examples of online music services : Napster, Rhapsody (online music service), Last.fm, Pandora (music service), Radio Time, Live365.

Podcasts: A podcast is a series of digital media files, either audio or video, that is released episodically and downloaded through web syndication. So now Radio was not only a medium of audio entertainment. There were several other sources too. Though it is at a very nascent stage, despite the fact that a large number of people blog from the nation yet it has a bright future since it works quite well in other nations.

DIFFERENCE IN GENRE, LANGUAGE AND COMMUNICATION PROCESS OF RADIO

PROGRAMMES

Previously genre of radio programmes was information and educational based. Radio

believed in traditional forms because of which only classical music was played for

entertainment prior to independence. But today the taste of people has changed a lot and

radio is more than a tool used for dissemination of information. Today the word that

dominates in radio is “Infotainment” i.e.; information as well as entertainment.

With the upcoming of Private FM radio channels whose genre was totally different from

All India Radio and was much appreciated in the market, gave rise to competition. These

channels came up with the ultimate theory that listeners for music were more than for

news. Children, youth and adults everyone like music and that too when viewers got to

listen the new film songs, it was quite obvious that they would switch to FM channels

from AIR.

Radio started following the needs of the youth as well as its own profit. Commercials

introduced removed the monotony of a programmes and also increased the revenue.

People appreciated the use of commercials as it was the best tool for creating awareness

and exchange of knowledge. So here again genre was affected.

The language used by FM channels is very informal. Listeners like this informality

more rather than the formal language of AIR.

Today through radio people make announcements of some event organized in their

own city or live programmes or concerts. So only news of national importance is not

the content of radio news. People even love to listen news about their city,

community and society in which they live. So radio is no more confined to national

political news but it is also a place where people can share social issues and recent

technologies or discoveries that may not be too big.

FM channels involve the listeners along with them by playing different games or

answering to their queries or solving their problems either by letter or through

phone calls. So today it’s a two way communication process rather than one way.

Again with the rise in technology, competition has increased a lot in the market.

Every private FM channel used the best technology. For example BIG FM was the

first one to use Dolby Digital Technology.