[cr-india] Campus radio has students hooked

[Alokesh]

Campus radio has students hooked

8 Nov, 2007, 1637 hrs IST,Shreya Biswas, TNN
NEW DELHI: It's time to tune in folks! Ever since the government announced
revised guidelines on community radio service (CRS), hordes of educational
institutes and universities are hitting the air waves with their own
versions of FM radio.
While FM radio service by some premier universities such as Delhi University
, Jamia Milia Islamia in Delhi, University of Agricultural Sciences and Holy
Cross College in the south have already gone on air, scores of others are
planning to jump on to the bandwagon including IIT-Kanpur.
There are others such as IIM-Kozikhode and Lucknow that have chosen to
launch Internet radio, a students only initiative to provide a live and
interactive platform their community. While IIM-K's K-dio is already
operational, IIM-L is plans go live shortly.
In the last one year alone around 10 campus radio stations across the
country have become operational. "The CRS initiative didn't get as much
response initially and institutes were reluctant to sign on due to some
infrastructural issues," says M V Vijayan, under-secretary, FM, Ministry of
Information and Broadcasting. "However, in the last one year, after the
announcement of revised guidelines, they are responding well and
institutions who stayed back due to lack of awareness are now coming
forward."
Delhi University's campus radio, launched last month, has already got the
students hooked. There have been three auditions for the various programmes
and students create the content. While the number of students for the
initial auditions was a mere 20-25, the fourth audition has attracted close
to 100 applicants. "Almost 50% of the content will be for the students and
the issues they are attached to and the rest will be for the community
around the campus," says Vijaylakshmi Sinha, head of the project for DU and
former director-general, AIR. She adds that the response has been "great".
The programmes are of general interest like girls' safety or academic like
career counselling besides softer genre programmes on junk jewellery, eating
jaunts, music and discussions.
That's exactly what the community radio initiative is aimed at, providing
the students or the community an interactive platform to reach out to each
other, discuss issues of common interest and provide a platform to develop
talent.
IIT-Kanpur, which plans to come up with its own community radio by next
March, wants to reach out to the community around the college besides the
students. There are plans to air programmes on agricultural research, newer
technologies and topics of general interest. "By March next year, the studio
would be operational. It will operate within a radius of 15km, reaching out
to the students and the people around the campus and addressing topics of
their interest." says Sanjay Dhande, director, IIT-K.
Till now, competition from FM channel and limited reach has restricted the
success of such community radio to a few. Pune University's Vigyaan Vaani
launched in 2005 is a case in point. The channel is received within a radius
of 7km of the assigned 10km while majority of its target audience is in the
centre of the city. Obviously, they can't be reached. Besides, the huge
competition from FM channels has also been a cause of concern. "Unless we
can reach out to more students and people, no one will know the utility of
such an effort," says Anand Deshmukh, director, Vidya Vaani.
"Though there have been efforts to make it interesting, the efforts are
noticed only if you reach out to them. What we have now done is to put up
the programmes on the website of the channel so that it is accessible."
The channel airs various programmes on issues related to student community,
general interest and music where students perform. This, the institutes feel
is a good way to nurture talent and give them an opportunity to connect with
their immediate neighbours and come up with ideas for problem solution.

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/News/News_By_Industry/Campus_radio_has_students_hooked/articleshow/2528652.cms

----------------------------------
Alokesh Gupta
New Delhi, India.