Broadcasting started in India 1927 with two privately owned transmitters at Bombay and Calcutta. All India Radio came into existence in 1936 and came to be known as Akashvani from 1957. First News Bulletin was broadcast on January 19, 1936.

PRASAR BHARATI
Prasar Bharati the autonomous Broadcasting Corporation of India was constituted by the Government of India to fulfill its commitment to free electronic media from government control. Akashvani and Doordarshan are being managed by Prasar Bharati Board appointed in November 1997.

ALL INDIA RADIO
The phenomenal growth achieved by All India Radio through seven decades had made it to one of the largest media organisations in the world. At the time of Independence the nation had only 6 broadcasting stations and 18 transmitters. Now in the new millennium, it has about 215 stations and 337 transmitters. To serve the communication needs of a plural society of India the network expanded gradually imbibing new technology and programme production techniques.

OBJECTIVES
To provide information, education and entertainment, for promoting the Welfare and happiness of the masses(Bahujan Hitaya Bahujan Sukhaya), All India Radio strives to:

a) Uphold the unity of the country and the democratic values enshrined in the Constitution.
b) Present a fair and balanced flow of information of national, regional. local and international interest, including contrasting views, without advocating any opinion or ideology of its own.
c) Promote the interests and concerns of the entire nation, being mindful of the need for harmony and understanding within the country and ensuring that the programmes reflect the programmes reflect the varied elements which make up the composite culture of India.
d) Produce and transmit varied programmes designed to awaken, inform, enlighten, educate, entertain and enrich all sections of the people.
e) Produce and transmit programmes relating to developmental activities in all their facets including extension work in Agriculture, Education, Health & Family Welfare and Science and Technology.
f) Serve the rural, illiterate and underprivileged populations, keeping in mind the special needs and interest of the young, social and cultural minorities, the tribal populations and of those residing in border regions, backward or remote areas.
g) Promote social justice and combat exploitation, inequality and such evils as untouchability and narrow parochial loyalties.
h) Serve the rural population, minority, communities, women, children, illiterate as well as other weaker and vulnerable sections of the society.
i) Promote national integration.

THREE TIER BROADCASTING
To realise its objectives AIR has evolved over the years, a three-tier system of broadcasting namely national, regional and local. It caters to the information, education and entertainment needs of the audience through its stations in this country of continental dimensions and with plural society. They provide news, music, spoken word and other programmes in 24 languages and 146 dialects to almost the entire population of the country, about 103 crores as per 2001 census.

National Channel broadcasts national programmes. The regional and sub-regional stations provide the second tier of broadcasting giving programmes in the regional languages and promoting regional cultural facets.

Local Radio is a more recent concept of broadcasting in India. Local Radio Stations were mostly set up at District Headquarter towns. Each of the stations serving a small area provides utility services and reaches right into the heart of the society. What distinguishes the Local Radio from the regional network is its down to earth intimate approach. The programmes of the Local Radio are area specific. They are flexible and spontaneous enough to enable the Station to function as the mouthpiece of the local community. There are also community Radio Centres at 5 places in the North-Eastern India to serve the local tribal people, set up recently.

Transmission timings and programme composition by broad categories of a few AIR Stations are given in the following pages. Each represents one type of station.

AIR DELHI - FM CHANNELS
PROGRAMME COMPOSITION OF FM-I CHANNEL

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