[cr-india] Query from an Indian Satellite Radio Programming Professional

[Vickram Crishna]

At 8:02 AM -0600 5/7/04, George Lessard wrote:
>[Please reply to: Isteyaq Ahmed <media_isteyaq at yahoo.com> ]
>Date: Fri, 7 May 2004 04:09:56 -0700 (PDT)
>Subject: [creative-radio] Query from Radio Programming Professional
>
>Dear Friends from the radio Industry,
>
>We are in the business of satellite broadcast in India and we are 
>using the satellite radio as a media to encourage community 
>listening on public transport, and listening booth. We have got 
>stuck in a difficult situation as because of certain regulatory 
>norms, imposed by the government we have been denied the permission 
>to play a Hindi Music format station. This had taken us aback and 
>now we have been asked to for a playout of Instrumental music with 
>other RJ links which are script based. I wanted to know from people 
>on the creative radio discussion group, whether any country has a 
>instrumental format station catering to the mass audience, which is 
>multicultural in nature. On a public transport will it be possible 
>to connect to the audience through such a format.I wish to know the 
>outlook of the radio programming professionals in this regards,

While I share your amazement at the quixotic response you got from 
the government, I venture to suggest that an instrumental music 
format (this could be Indian or international or a mix of both, 
evidently, since no restrictions are mentioned) is not necessarily 
the disaster it seems at first glance. It seems you are permitted a 
script based accompaniment in addition to the normal RJ methods used 
without difficulty on existing radio stations. This should suffice to 
handle the requirements of a transport system, which may be a 
significant listener base for your particular genre. In fact, 
instrumental music is not a bad thing to listen to while travelling, 
so it should be very popular.
-- 
Vickram