MUMBAI: Radio Media Village 90.8 FM, first community radio service in Kerala, has truly served the sole motive of a Community Radio Station (CRS). Besides keeping its community abreast of the latest happenings, the station has collected Rs 1 crore for kidney patients.
The not-for-profit radio service that serves geographic communities and their interests is a venture of St. Joseph College of Communication. It is the first University affiliated Media College in South India. It aims to bring voice to the voiceless by involving members of the community in the broadcast of programmes.
The station has gone all the way to collect funds for the financially underprivileged in society from the time it went on-air on February 2012.
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Speaking with Radioandmusic.com, Radio Media Village 90.8 FM programming head Vipin Raj says, “We have created awareness about the importance of Kidney transplantation in our community through our community radio station and collected a sum of one crore for seven people for their kidney operation. From the time, we have started the radio station; this cause was started. We have also collected Rs 1lakh through talk show ‘Pin Point’ for an organ transplant initiative.”
Radio Media Village has initiated a list of programmes aimed to create awareness about solar energy, vegetable farming, rainwater harvesting, eye donation, kidney transplantation and liver transplantation. Raj further adds, “We give 30 people Rs1000 every month for their medical expenses. We provide this cash to unprivileged people who are ill and cannot pay for their medical illness. We have collected this money from our listeners and well-wishers who contribute to support their community members.”
Broadcasted by the St Joseph College of Communication (SJCC), this CR is depended on mergers, advertising revenues and funds supported by the university. “We have around 80 per cent volunteers and 20 percent paid staff. We get very little money through advertising,” adds Raj. Students who have opted for radio and journalism as their subjects contribute to the CR .
In total, there are six CRS in Kerala. “We share the same content among all the CRS in Kerala and that is really a big challenge. It is really expensive to create content,” stresses Raj.
An aerial distance of 30 km comes under the coverage of 90.8 RMV. Its main programmes include news, educational, agricultural, environmental, health, social welfare and community development programmes etc.
Media Village has 55 varied programmes which are aired throughout the week from 5am to 12am in the night. The station informs about all the happenings in day-to-day life that concerns workers, farmers, children and women. Traffic and weather updates are given hourly. They have four live phoning programmes throughout the day and 36 live programmes in a week. “We just had the programming for nine hours but due to the listeners demand we increased the time and we have around five lakh people listening to our radio station,” he reveals.
Raj adds, “The biggest advantage for us is the people around the community where we are based. The people in our frequency area have accepted us really strongly. They consider the radio station as their own.”
