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Some brand new radio channels for you

By Mandira Nayar

NEW DELHI APRIL 11. It's an invasion of a different kind. At long last, private operators are ready to battle it out for your ear. With air waves likely to become "free'' from All India Radio's monopoly later this month, Delhiites can tune in to three brand new radio channels.

They are India Today group's "Radio Today'', Star-backed "Radio City'', and "Radio Mirchi'' of IndiaTimes banner. Though all three were to become operational as far back as December 2001, they ran into infrastructural problems and failed to keep the deadline.

The problem was to find a common wavelength. With Prasar Bharati offering them towers at commercial rates to broadcast, the task was to bring all the channels on one platform -- or, in this case, the same "band''.

``It is a big project which would have taken a year but we had to coordinate with the private operators and the Government. The Pitampura tower needed to be strengthened and we had to import some equipment. We have everything in place now and soon you will hear the music from Delhi up to Meerut,'' says K.R.P.Verma, Chairman and Managing Director of Broadcasting Engineers' Corporation India Limited (BECIL).

For what is probably the biggest revolution radio has seen for a while, the three players have been strangely quiet about the whole affair. "We are ready to start from tomorrow if BECIL gives us the green signal. But we will need some time to run some checks. Since the D-Date is uncertain, we are waiting to start our advertising campaign. But we will paint the city red,'' says a Radio Today spokesperson.

Already a big hit in Mumbai, the channels are confident that they will get a similar response in Delhi. With promise of round- the-clock music, these channels hope that they will be able to get Generation Y to sit up and listen. And while the battle for sound is on, the race to be the first new channel on the air has just begun.

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