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Today tapping into any form of information, media, and entertainment is present at the fingertips of every individual, thanks to the advent of the internet. But, for a very long time, even before the television came into being, the only source of any form of instant communication with and news about the outside world depended on the Radio. In India, the history of this device dates back almost a hundred years, when the country was still a British colony.
Though many people live under the misconception that the introduction of the radio occurred in India with All India Radio (AIR), radio broadcasting in the country actually began 13 years before the AIR came into existence.
Origin
The first-ever radio broadcast in the country was made in June 1923 by the Radio Club of Bombay. After this historical landmark was achieved, the Calcutta Radio Club was founded five months later. It was on July 23, 1927, that the Indian Broadcasting Company (IBC) came into existence and the day came to be known as the National Broadcasting Day.
Keeping with an agreement, the company was authorized to operate just two radio stations: the Bombay station, which started on 23 July 1927, and then the Calcutta station, which started on 26 August 1927. However, the company was liquidated in just three years on 1 March 1930 and was taken over by the government, after which the Department of Industries and Labour began its operations on an experimental basis for two years. The company began operating under the State Broadcasting Service (ISBS) on 1 April 1930. Once the operations became permanent, in May 1932, Lionel Fielden was appointed the first Controller of Broadcasting in August 1935. In September 1935, a private radio station was set up by the name of Akashvani Mysore.
The government-undertaken Indian State Broadcasting Service came to be known as All India Radio on June 8, 1936.
Expansion
Lionel Fielden was an extremely driven individual who gave Delhi its first radio station, at Kingsway Camp, by January 1936. In a conversation with Lord Keith, he confessed, “I quarrel frightfully with all the secretaries and deputy secretaries, and I don’t see how I can do anything else.”
In August 1937, the Central News Organisation (CNO) came into being and it was in that very year that the AIR came under the Department of Information and Broadcasting, presently called the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, and it remains under its jurisdiction till date.
By the time India attained independence from the British Raj; the country had six radio stations within its territory: Calcutta, Bombay, Delhi, Lucknow, Madras, and Tiruchirapalli. There were three more stations in Peshawar, Lahore, and Dhaka (then a part of Pakistan). All India Radio at that point covered a mere 2.5 % of the area and was accessed by only 11% of the population. FM broadcasting in the country commenced on 23 July 1977 in Chennai (then known as Madras).
In 1948, the CNO was divided into two sects: the News Services Division (NSD) and the External Services Division (ESD). In 1956, the National Broadcaster was named AKASHVANI while the following year the Vividh Bharati Service was launched as an entertainment segment playing popular film music. However, achieving the latter was no easy feat as, in 1952, AIR imposed a ban on film music. The then Minister of Information and Broadcasting, BV Keskar, believed that film music was “Westernized” and the Indian audience needed to indulge in homegrown classical music the demand for which he believed to have “fallen” and that it was “on the point of extinction”. During this time, a radio station based out of Sri Lanka, Radio Ceylon, saw a massive opportunity among Indian listeners and started their Hindi music station, which came to the rescue of film music lovers in India.
Fun Fact
The characteristic jingle associated with AIR was composed by musician Walter Kaufmann. He was born in Karlsbad (present-day Czech Republic) and received his musical education in Prague and Berlin. With the rise of the totalitarian regime in Germany, he fled to India in the mid-1930s to avoid persecution by the Nazis. In India, he researched extensively into the musical culture, history, and traditions of the country and even worked in the Bollywood industry.
Present Day
Today All India Radio is the largest radio network and one of the largest broadcasting organizations in the world, comprising about 420 stations domestically and airing programs in 23 languages and 179 dialects. According to a survey by AZ Research PPL conducted in April 2020, the radio listenership in the country touched 51 million that year. The survey was commissioned by the Association of Radio Operators for India. Radio broadcasting also contributes 4.2% of the overall advertising revenues collected from media and entertainment industries and the number is expected to double in the next five years.
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