MUMBAI: The revamped avatar of IIT Roorkee’s online radio station CampusBeats has just completed a year of operations.
The Audio Section, Cultural Council, IIT Roorkee launched its beta version of CampusBeats in August 2007 After monitoring the response by students to the online radio channel and testing its feasibility, the new and improved version of CampusBeats was launched by IIT Roorkee director Dr S C Saxena on 2 April 2008.
Puneet Jain, student of Chemical Department Engineering, IIT R says a group of students were initially planning to launch an on-air radio channel but did not receive the required permission and so had to make do with a LAN based radio channel.
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Puneet says that the radio channel which is managed by around 40 students, has ten daily programs that include shows like Just 4 U, Celeb Chat, Top 20 of the week, Campus Tadkha, Club Beats and so on. The radio covers info on entertainment, interviews with the faculty, discussions of importance on campus and so on.
CampusBeats has also been the radio partners for a few cultural and technical festivals conducted by IIT.
The station promotes itself through notifications sent through a mailing list that is updated regularly. When asked whether the idea of starting a campus based radio was inspired from other universities who practised the same, Puneet says that the idea was created by the students who firmly believed that an interactive platform was necessary to bring the students up to date on campus related issues and provide the students with a means of entertainment as well
Puneet reveals that IIT R has a campus band whose tracks are featured on CampusBeats. Commenting on the variety of music that CampusBeats plays, Puneet says that the radio channel plays four genres of music in particular – Hindi, Old is gold, English and Telegu.
Though the faculty advisor of the college screens the content before it is aired CampusBeats, the faculty is extremely liberal in terms of allowing the students to address issues that they feel are important, he says
Talking about the most popular shows on CampusBeats, Puneet says that most students enjoy the shows Jukebox and My Chat wherein RJs interact and chat with listeners. My Chat also provides a platform for students to post their suggestions for new shows and feedback regarding existing ones.
