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Magazine
Radio revolution
SEVANTI NINAN
WHEN in July this year, Rupert Murdoch became the first to launch a privately-owned radio station in independent India, it underscored the fact that the Government is less nervous about leasing out frequencies to global media businesses than it is about letting communities in this country own radio stations.
India is one of the few democracies in the world to disallow community radio, in which local communities own and operate radio stations. When the Government decided, in 1999, to open up FM radio to the private sector it chose not to open up frequencies for the community to use. Privately, officials cited nervousness about it falling into the wrong hands, read militants and terrorists.
Last fortnight however, when a new organisation called Gyanvani launched its first FM radio station from Allahabad, it marked a guarded attempt by the Government of India to allow a semblance of community radio. Forty frequencies have been allocated in the first round to this organisation, with the stipulation that the break up of programming will be 60 per cent educational radio and 40 per cent community radio. Its definition of community is a far cry from what it is in the Latin American countries and in South Africa, but those who know the potential community radio offers for lively and relevant programming, can only hope that in India this will be the thin end of the wedge.
Gyanvani is the audio cousin of Gyandarshan, the educational TV channel run by the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) in Delhi. It has gone on air exactly a year after a memorandum of understanding was signed with the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.
To begin with the community radio, part of these stations will be only token, it is educational radio with a community component, and not enough work has gone into designing the latter. It is unlikely to be community-owned or managed in any real sense, at least in the beginning. As R. Sreedher, Director of the electronic media production centre at IGNOU which runs Gyanvani puts it, to the extent good quality audio programmes are available from institutions in the targeted area, the maximum will be 40 per cent to be sourced from the community.
The first transmitter was commissioned on November 7 at Allahabad. The second will be at Coimbatore, followed by Lucknow, Vishakapatnam and Bhopal by January 2002. Meanwhile a transmitter has been taken on lease from Prasar Bharati at Bangalore. Test transmissions have also begun there from November 7.
The content is currently a hotchpotch of what is available (for free), and what a variety of educational institutions around the country can rustle up. In Bangalore the educational component will come from Karnataka State Open University, the Regional Institute for Education, Mysore, The Central Institute for Indian Llanguages, and the Audio Visual Research Centre, of Mysore University, among others. Worldspace has also agreed to contribute programming. The community component will be engendered by the NGO Voices, which has in the past produced community radio programmes on All India Radio.The Ramakrishna mission in Karnataka will try to mount programmes for those with disabilities.
In Allahabad, IGNOU, Rajshri Tandon Open University, Indian Institute for Information Technology, Allahabad University, the Agricultural Institute, and premier cultural organisations are contributing audio software. Presently Allahabad broadcasts for eight hours a day, 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. and 6 p.m.. Four hours of original programming, which is then repeated. One hour is reserved for interactive phone in counselling by IGNOU or the Rajshri Tandon U.P. State Open University.
IGNOU contributes one hour from its audio library of 700 programmes. One hour is reserved for music related education, and one hour is now contributed by local organisations. Programmes for competitive exams are being mounted. Career counselling is undertaken daily. The broadcasts will go up to 16 hours within a month or two when more and more local programmes are available.
In the first year any good software given for broadcast will be accepted, with no financial commitments on either side. Advertisements have been put out in newspapers asking people who have educational or socially relevant audio programmes to offer it to Gyanvani either free or on nominal royalty.
This is true of both the educational and community broadcasts. They have received 100 programmes from a womens' group in Delhi for consideration. From the second year onwards it is likely that partner institutions other than the Ministry of Human Resource Development, will have to share pro rata charges for running the channel.
The Government has budgeted Rs. 1.5 crores for the setting up of each of these radio stations, initially they will use AIR's transmission towers and premises. The system will also use the existing audio infrastucture of educational institutions, suitably upgraded. Various organisations will give the software and the capsuling and packaging cost may work out to Rs. 4000 per hour.
Sreedher says "enough autonomy" is given to local stations. These will have its own local steering committees with "renowned" academicians as chairman and convenor. They will decide the programme mix, timings, and who the partner institutions should be, based on local needs and expertise. What is "enough" only time will tell.
Partner institutions for the community component will be non government organisations such as Voices in Bangalore, Andhra Mahila Sabha in Vishakapatnam and Ramakrisha Mission in Coimbatore, the National Foundation of India in Delhi, womens' forums and so on. Not even one local committee has been formed fully, membership is open. Andhra Mahila Sabha has been asked, because they have produced a lot of audio programmes on health, hygiene, and women's rights.
In Allahabad, though the channel is on air, partner organisations from the community are yet to be tied up. Local committees in Coimbatore and Vishkapatnam have already met twice, Lucknow once.
As for training and so on, Sreedher says Gyanvani would like to be different from Akashvani and private commercial FM. While starting the stations about 100 hours of programmes are given by IGNOU as model ones. Local youth, who have shown enthusiasm in Bangalore and Allahabad, are being given the freedom to improvise on the basis of these. "We hope to get a different USP for each station," he says. Only the core staff is trained. Gyanvani is completely digital and anyone can operate. Normally 100 persons operate a full-fledged radio station. Here there will be only three full time staff. Training is given on the job.
Gyanvani today is a sop to those who say the Government should allow the community into radio ownership and management. What it grows into tomorrow, and what precedents it sets, depends on how pro-active civil society is in response to it.
One reason India does not have community radio is because there is not enough sustained demand being voiced for it. Gyanvani could remain an uninspiring, semi-government creation, or it could become, as one said before, the thin edge of the wedge. The door has been opened, just a chink.
E-mail the writer at sevantininan@vsnl.com
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