New Delhi: AIR (All India Radio) completed 81 years of operations on Wednesday. Once an only player in the country; the pubcaster has had to, with time, face competition with the arrival of private radio channels in the country.
When asked about how the private FM sector has affected AIR’s position in the country AIR’s Deputy Director General – Programming, planning, policy, development and commercial G Jayalal said, “AIR is still the number one player in the county because of the kind of reach it has. All India Radio reaches places where private FM players have not entered yet. Our signal reaches the remotest areas in the country.”
However, it gives the impression that nothing could dampen the spirits of AIR, as the public broadcaster is now headed towards digitalisation of its content alongwith revamping its website. Jayalal remarked, “Yes, it is true that we are now digitalising our content. Apart from that we have also been working at giving a facelift to our website for some months now.”
As a public service broadcaster, AIR had always emphasised on broadcasting socially relevant content; content that would spread evangelism. “Since we are into public service we have to concentrate on serving the public. So while primarily most of our channels have socially relevant content; we also have channels like Rainbow that concentrates on music and entertaining listeners.
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But even in channels like Rainbow we try to incorporate as much socially relevant content as we can”, added Jayalal. While AIR is trying to evolve with new technology and content; it would be interesting to watch how in the coming days, the radio from the public sector takes its fight ahead against the private FM players.
