Akashvani Bhawan
Telephone: 22489131/22489132
Email address : airlive@air.org.in 

Vividh Bharati            

The Radio Club was first set up in 1923-24 in Calcutta and Bombay. Proper and regular broad casting was started on 23rd July, 1927 in Bombay and on 26th August, 1927 in Calcutta. License was obtained from the Government to form the Indian Broad Casting Co. At first the target audience were villagers and officers in remote places. Then, the license fee was Rs.10 with and additional 10% tribute on imported wireless equipments.

Experiments with Radio Broadcasting over the years : 
(1) In 1894, Jagdish Chandra Bose tried to form a broadcasting section.
(2) In 1925, Dr. Sisir Kumar Mitra experimented with transmission. 
(3) In 1926, BBC took over.

The first Broad Casting Centre of Calcutta was set up near the Calcutta High Court in the Temple Chamber. At that time, the only remuneration paid to the performing artistes was the traveling allowance. In the primary stage, headphone radios were used, for which no batteries or aerials were required. Radio programmes were held under a tent in the Maidan. On 26th August, 1927, the Centre was shifted to 1, Garstin Place, with two studies. In 1940, the number of studios increased to six. In 1958, the center was transferred to Eden Gardens. The organization was then headed by Mr. Nripen Majumdar, Mr. Raichand Boral, Mr. Jogesh Chandra Bose, Mr. Rajen Sen, Mr. R.C. Dey, Mr. Pankaj Mallick, etc.

Rabindranath Tagore’s songs were first called “Rabindra Sangeet” by Pankaj Mallick. In 1931, Smt. Basanteswari Banikumar joined the organization. In 1932, Raichand conducted the Bengali programme “Mahishasur Mardini” on the day of “Shashti”, which was extremely popular.

In 1930, the Indian Broad Casting Co. was liquidated. The Government of India then decided to take over. In 1935, under the Viceroy ship of Lord Linlithgon, the Indian State Broad Casting Service became the “All India Radio”. 2 new stations were set up at Peshwar (N.W. Frontier) and Allahabad (U.P.), to conduct programmes for the rural audience. In 1937, a central news organization (News Service Division) was founded. In 1939, broadcasting was started for foreign audiences. In the year 1940, Professor A.S. Bokhari became the controller of Broadcasting and became the D.G. in 1943. In 1947, there were 6 stations in India – Calcutta, Bombay, Madras, Delhi, Lucknow, Trivendrum; and five principle stations at Baroda, Mysore, Trivendrum, Hyderabad & Aurangabad.

EXTERNAL SERVICE DIVISION (E.S.D)
In October 1939, during the Second World War, the Far Eastern Bureau of British Ministry of India and the All India Radio launched the External Service Division.
There were two categories under E.S.D
(1)  Indian Overseas – with 8 Indian languages like Bengali, Gujrati, Hindi, Punjabi, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu.
(2) Neighbouring Nations – with 16 languages like Arabic, Baluchi, Burmese, Chinese, Dari, English, French, Indonesian, Nepali, Persian, Pust, Russian, Singhalese, Swahili, Thai, Tibetan.

In the year 1952, film music was regarded cheap by some prominent people. As a result the film producers association terminated their contracts with A.I.R. Vividh Bharti was then commenced by Radio Ceylon in the year 1957 at Bombay and Madras. It was commercialized in the year 1967.

The programme composition consists of News, Music and Spoken Word. Music refers to all kinds like Classical, folk, devotional, light, film and western. Spoken word can take the form of talks and discussions and includes programmes on sports, drama, radio features and documentaries as well as special audience programmes on subjects like Farm & Home, Women, Children, Education, Health, Industrial Workers, etc. Interactive broadcast includes phone-ins, radio-bridge, voice mails, apart from listeners forum.

In 1947, AIR had 6 stations in India, 18 transmitters, with an area coverage of 2.5% & population coverage of 11%.

In 1999-2000, there are 198 stations, 310 transmitters, with 90% area coverage and 97.3% population coverage, in 24 languages and 146 dialects.

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The F.M. channel was started from April, 1980. 

In the year 1994, some private parties were introduced in Calcutta, Bombay, Delhi and other states for a better broadcasting system by the Government. In total five private parties were introduced – 
(1) HMV F.M.
(2) Radio Network Ltd.
(3) Sahu Jain Services Ltd.
(4) Raghuvar India Ltd.
(5) Bennet Coleman & Co. Ltd.

In the beginning, nine hours were allotted to the private parties. They were to pay the Government Rs.3000/- for a prime time slot, and Rs.2000/- for a non-prime time slot. In 1998, the Government called tender again.

On 26th June, 1998, programmes of 3 parties were discontinued by the Government. Sahu Jain Services was discontinued from 18th July, 1998 by Calcutta High Court Order and Radio Network was discontinued from 3rd May, 2000, following withdrawal of a court case by the party.

SPECIALITY :
All live programmes are held in the channel.

VARIOUS PROGRAMMES : 
(1) BHORAI 5 A.M. to 6.30 A.M. Spiritual programme for the elders.
(2) ALAPON 4 P.M. to 6.00 P.M. Programme for youth audience.
(3) AAJ RATE 10 P.M.to 12 P.M. Programmes

• Health Magazine
• Womens Magazine
• Cinema Magazine
• Sports Magazine
• Literary Magazine
• Talk Show

• Classical music
• Beng.-Hindi Film music
• Rabindra sangeet
• Modern songs etc.