Close on the heels of the merger of Amruthavarshini (100.10FM), a classical music channel, with ‘Ragam’, a national channel, the iconic FM Rainbow (101.3 FM), the only public service Kannada Frequency Modulation (FM) entertainment channel, will shortly be merged with All India Radio (AIR) Bengaluru channel presently transmitted on Medium Wave, sources said.
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According to reliable sources, 101.3 FM Rainbow will stop its present entertainment programmes from July 16, and start transmitting AIR - Bengaluru content presently being transmitted on Medium Wave. “The monthly duty chart had been put out only until July 8 but was extended till July 15 on Thursday,” an FM Rainbow staff member said. However, when contacted, senior officials refused to comment on the issue.
This has sparked outrage among a section of Kannada listeners, Govindarajanagar MLA Priya Krishna has now written a letter to Chief Minister Siddaramaiah appealing to him to ensure the FM Rainbow channel is not shut down. “The merger will reduce Kannada programming on the channel to 5 hours from 17 hours. FM Rainbow is part of the Kannada identity in the city and the merger is essentially an imposition of Hindi and we will fight against it,” he told The Hindu.
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“Consolidation of transmission”
Senior officials from AIR said as part of an ongoing effort to consolidate transmission and content, the union government had decided to phase out Medium Wave transmission, on which the public-service edutainment content of AIR was still being transmitted on, but increasingly has very few listeners as the industry has moved to FM and most devices also now provide only FM band. “AIR content is very rich and is one of the main objectives of Prasar Bharati. The aim now is to take this public service content to a wider listenership again,” the official said.
“Wherever there are two FM channels, one will now be converted to a ‘content’ channel, essentially transmitting AIR content and the other kept exclusively for ‘entertainment’. As part of this effort, as there are two FM channels in the city, it has been decided that AIR Bengaluru content will be transmitted from FM Rainbow and Vividh Bharti (102.9 FM) will become an exclusive entertainment channel, with film songs, game shows and other programmes. As part of this transition, Vividh Bharti has already seen an increase in Kannada programming. While Hindi programming has reduced from 9 hours to 4 hours, Kannada programming has jumped to 13 hours,” the official said, adding there was no clarity yet on whether FM Rainbow brand will be retained or not.
Meanwhile, Hindi programming on FM Rainbow 101.3 has come down and Hindi content has been added and Pradesh Samachar of AIR Bengaluru is being transmitted on the channel.