All India Radio is the national public radio broadcaster of India. It offers programs in English, Hindi, and numerous regional and local languages. It is the largest radio station and one of the largest broadcasting organizations in the world in terms of the number of languages broadcast and the spectrum of socio-economic and cultural diversity it serves. The history of AIR is much older than most of us.
Like any other nation, the radio was started in India in an experimental way. As per records the first radio club to start functioning and airing programs was the Bombay radio club in June 1923 and in November 1923 the Calcutta radio club started airing programs. The Madras presidency club started broadcasting service in 1924. In 1927, the Indian broadcasting company received a license from the government to start a radio station in Calcutta and Bombay. By 1930, the Indian broadcasting company went bankrupt. Radio broadcasting in India was then taken over by the British government. Having encouraged Marconi and experienced the reach of radio, the British didn't waste much time in starting the first radio network in India, namely, All India radio. In 1930, they took over the 2 transmitters of the bankrupt Indian broadcasting company and started radio broadcasting under the Indian State Broadcasting Service under the department of labor and industries. Lionel Fielden, the first controller of ISBS (Indian State Broadcasting Service) thought broadcasting was too broad to be easily pronounced by the Indians and due to his efforts, ISBS (Indian State Broadcasting Service) become All Indian Radio. The all-Indian radio was started in 1936. Slowly the network started developing with various radio stations across the country. The British government made use of radio very well during the Second World War to reach the people. The first news bulletin was started in 1936 in AIR. The signature tune of All India Radio was composed by Walter Kauffman (he worked in the music department of AIR) the director of music AIR. On August 13, 1947, Saeeda Banu became the first women newsreader of AIR
After independence:
When India attained independence, the AIR network had just six stations with 18 transmitters in Delhi, Bombay, Calcutta, Madras, Lucknow, and Tiruchirappalli. Radio transmission on the medium wave was limited to the urban elite of these cities. Head India then had coverage of just 2.5% of the area and 11% of the population the following year the central news organization (CNO) was split up into 2 divisions the news service division (NSD) and the external service division (ESD ), the national program of AIR started in July 1952. In 1956 the name Akashvani was adopted for the national broadcaster. Akashvani (आकाशवाणी) is a Sanskrit word meaning 'celestial announcement' or 'voice from the sky/heaven'.
Vivid Bharati
For a long time, AIR offered education and information base programs for listeners. To fulfil the commercial objectives of the listeners, AIR started the Vivid Bharati in 1957 which was an instant hit as entertainment through film songs was its main aim and its popularity was evident from the advertisement that poured for the Vivid Bharti. Vivid Bharti enjoyed popularity and revenue at par with the private FM channels of today. Popular film songs, both old and new, attracted the listeners. Vivid Bharti service was available only in selected cities, but its popularity was well spread outside others cities also. The latest film song which were broadcasted regularly on Vivid Bharti easily become the Super hit songs of the session. Thus. vivid Bharti came to be liked by the common people as well as those in the film world. The sheen went out of vivid Bharti’s popularity due to the arrival of the private FM channel. In a measure to help the vivid Bharti reach its old grace, the AIR started transmitting the vivid Bharti as FM channel, in addition to providing the same through. The FM service of All India Radio was started long back in 1977 but it didn't make much difference or turn the entire audience towards it instantly.
With a network of 262 radio stations, AIR today is accessible to almost the entire population of the country and nearly 92% of the total area. Air today broadcasts in 23 languages and 146 dialects. Programs of the External Service Division are broadcasted in 11 Indian and 16 foreign languages, reaching out to more than 100 countries. These external broadcasts aim to keep the overseas listeners informed about the development os our country. Nowadays, the radio program of our honorable prime minister Narendra Modi ( Maan ki Baat) is very famous in AIR. Air at present operates 18 FM stereo channels, called FM Rainbow, targeting the urban audience. Four more FM channels called, AIR FM Gold, broadcast composite news and entertainment program from Delhi Kolkata Chennai in Mumbai.
history of all India radio
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