AIR to reposition proposed 24-hr radio news channel
All India Radio’s proposed 24-hour news channel may take few more months to hit the airwaves. The launch of this ambitious news channel, which was originally scheduled to go on air last April, has been delayed due to change in its positioning.
All India Radio’s proposed 24-hour news channel may take few more months to hit the airwaves. The launch of this ambitious news channel, which was originally scheduled to go on air last April, has been delayed due to change in its positioning.
This round-the-clock radio news channel was conceived as a bilingual (Hindi–English) news channel. But according to Brajeshwar Singh, Director General, All India Radio (AIR), the channel is now being repositioned as the one with Hindi and English as backbone but with significant regional language component.
Singh says that AIR has decided to change its strategy for the news channel in view of the fact that about one fourth of its listeners are uneducated and in cities like Kolkata and Bangalore, vernacular population is dominant. However, Prasar Bharati is now conducting a pre-market survey to check out the audience preference.
Meanwhile, AIR has gone all set to offer 10 radio channels on Doordarshan’s DTH services, which is scheduled for launch this month. Besides the 24-hour Vividh Bharati service and FM channels, listeners would also get composite channels linking various regional stations.
