Staying in touch with listeners and designing programmes in tune with the public demand is the vow taken by the All India Radio’s Tirupati station.
Come February 1, 2017, the FM station completes 26 years of existence. On the occasion, the station has announced to offer special programmes by meeting the people at the grassroots.
The Tirupati station touched a milestone four months ago by launching Sri Venkateswara Suprabhatham and other rituals live from Tirumala from 3 a.m. to 6 a.m. The programme has been receiving tremendous response from all over. Also, scholars from Sri Venkateswara Vedic University render Vedic chanting for five minutes at 6 a.m. “Ours is the station that works for the longest duration in the State,” says station director Nagasuri Venugopal.
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The five-minute Sanskrit news bulletin is also getting good response in Tirupati.
Apart from a tower at its Annamaiah Circle premises in the city, the station has another tower on Tirumala hills, operating on frequencies 107.5 MHz and 103.2 MHz. Thanks to its high altitude, the programmes reach places as far as Amalapuram (East Godavari), Bhongir (Telangana), Tiruchirapalli (Tamil Nadu) and Bengaluru. “We have dedicated listeners who write to us regularly from Telangana and Coastal Andhra districts,” Dr. Venugopal has pointed out.
While the private players are focussed on city-specific developments, youth and film music, AIR Tirupati concentrates on inculcating values in children, reaching out to women through ‘Vanithalokam’, farmers at ‘Chenu-Sedyam’ and local litterateurs in ‘Prabhatha Rekhalu’. Dr. Venugopal has announced launch of more localised content in the forthcoming days.
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