More listeners tuning in to All India Radio

Listenership increases by 30 per cent in 2014–15

The All India Radio building, which was once the residence of Dewan Mirza Ismail, now houses the administrative wing of Akashvani Bengaluru.— Photo: V. Sreenivasa Murthy

If you think All India Radio has no listeners, think again. At a time when private FM channels are giving a tough competition, the assured listenership of AIR has touched nearly a million at any given point of time in Karnataka, and this number can even be four times higher for special broadcasts.

The nearly one million figure achieved in 2014–15 is 30 per cent higher than the assured listenership reported in 2013–14, the latest survey from Akashvani’s Audience Research Unit (ARU) in Bengaluru has revealed. According to the ARU figures, the last six months have magically brought in a 30 per cent increase in listenership data. compared to 2013-14 that showed “7 lakh people tuning in at any given point of time.”

The listenership increases by four times during special broadcasts at night.

Basavaraj C. Sadar, Director, Akashvani, Bengaluru, said there has been tremendous response from across the State for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ‘Mann Ki Baat’, which started seven months ago. “The Kannada translation of Mr. Modi’s address has a wide appreciation from the innards too,” he says.

According to Audience Research Officer V.S. Deep Kumar, “Akashvani had 12 per cent Karnataka-listenership in 2013–14 with 7 lakh assured listeners, while the last few monthly surveys this year have shown nearly 10 lakh listeners, mirroring nearly three lakh more people adding to our listenership data.”

The AIR Karnataka has also reported a profit of Rs. 10.4 crore during 2014–15, up from Rs. 6.5 crore in 2013–14.

Besides the present 14 hours of music broadcast per day on Amrutavarshini and its primary channel, Akashvani Bengaluru has segregated nearly 2,000 hours of “identified preserved music material” with its archival material on CDs selling like hotcakes.

“The last six months has seen our CD sales of Karnataka artistes — R.K. Srikantan, Gangubai Hangal, Bhimsen Joshi, Kalinga Rao, Mallikarjun Mansur and Basavaraj Rajguru — touching Rs. 3 lakh. “It is pure gold as the collection is original AIR recording, some of them being priceless 50-year-old soundtracks of heritage value,” says Mr. Sadar.

Digitisation of AIR music collection has also started on a large scale, which means its archival volume too will correspondingly increase.