Radio

The FM stations has revived the listeners of Radio. There was a time when only we had the GOOD OLD Vividhbharati. We used to give the listeners every single information. Be it Sports Commentary, old bollywood music, news and what not.

They still continue to do it and with a pride. Perhaps the only radio station which reaches every nook and corner of the country. Tune into 102.9 FM at 7 PM you will have our soldiers from some corner of the country requesting some very beautiful songs and I bet you would love to hear them.

But the modern Urban FM stations have brought a great twist in radio world. Definitely appreciate them. I am proudly can say I am listening these new-gen station from the day they were launched and have seen them evolve for both better and worse. 10 years back there was only a ONE private FM station and they were ruling for almost 2 years, if my memory serves good. Now we have about 12 odd FM Stations.

Thanks to some Govt initiative that there are 3 FM stations dedicated who share knowledge as Academic lessons, Classical Music, Devotional Music etc. The rest are purely dedicated to Money-making Business.

Yes in Bangalore we have around 5 stations who only and only play KANNADA movie music, and one station each playing our Bollywood music and the Western Pop/Rock/whatever.

I listen to almost all of them except the one who plays western music. Each and every, yes each and every station claims themselves to be the No. 1 station in Bangalore.

There is a trend followed by every single station. They have gags between songs to attract people, but not sure how many people do get attracted. These gags are the worst things to listen. Some are even embarrassing to listen in public.

Forget these gags, the songs, which are the main part of the radio, main part of their business, have become now just as fillers between these gags or the advertisements. Tune into Radio One the only station who plays Bollywood songs, anytime of the day and if you listen to one song, just one song right from the start to the end (from start I mean even the starting music, similarly for end) and I will bet anything for it. You have your most favourite song (your all time favourite song) or a song which you haven't listened to for a long time, on air and you would be feeling on heaven listening to it, when you had not even expected it, and there is every chance you wont get to know listen in full. Some part of the song is sure to be clipped off.

And you wont believe every time the songs are being played there is sure to be a gag/a traffic update/an hourly time check to end the song, because these gags are programmed to be played at the exact intervals.

You will never find any advertisement ending up halfway through or ended by these gags/traffic updates/hourly time checks. These are all cleverly programmed. Then why are they programmed when there is a song being played and not anything else?

I definitely believe that these ads are the ones paying these stations heavily. But does that mean they compromise with the songs being played? Isn't that (playing songs) the main reason for running a Radio business with a little bit of added attractions.

But the other things seem to be more important the songs itself. There is also a competition of playing maximum number of songs in an hour. Whats the use of playing 13 songs in an hour when neither of the songs are played in full. Are these just for records? For ratings? To show their position in the competition?