In a historic initiative, Private FM Radio broadcasters would now be permitted to broadcast All India Radio (AIR) News bulletins, in English/ Hindi as per list of bulletins given in News Schedule, subject to certain terms and conditions.
Information and Broadcasting Minister Rajyavardhan Rathore on Tuesday launched the sharing of All India Radio News with private FM broadcasters. This will be done free of cost, on trial basis initially till May 31, 2019.
Any Private FM broadcaster which intends to broadcast the news bulletins will first have to register with News Services Division of All India Radio on its website http://newsonair.com at the Register Now tab.
The AIR News bulletins shall have to be carried in toto, in an unaltered form. The commercials which are broadcast during news bulletins shall also have to be carried along with the news in toto.
Private FM broadcasters will have to give due credit to AIR for sourcing their news. They will have to carry AIR News bulletins either simultaneously or deferred live by not more than 30 minutes. In case of deferred live, an announcement should precede that it is a deferred live broadcast.
Broadcast of AIR News by any FM Radio channel can be done only after accepting the terms and conditions, which can be found at http://newsonair.com/Broadcaster-Reg-TnC.aspx.
Speaking after launching the initiative, Rathore congratulated all officials of ministry of information and broadcasting and said that the priority of the government was ensuring awareness of people and therefore this service has been made available free of cost.
Stating that an aware citizen is an empowered citizen, he added that this step is a collaborative effort of bringing together all the Radio Stations of India to inform, educate and empower people. Through a televised message, Prasar Bharati chairman A. Surya Prakash termed the initiative significant in this era of collaboration and convergence. ”It’s a historic moment and augurs well for our democracy,” he said.
Anuradha Prasad, president, Association of Radio Operators of India, thanked the government for accepting the long standing demand of private radio broadcasters to present news on their platform. Ira Joshi, DG, NSD:AIR, termed the initiative path-breaking and historic.
Speaking about the initiative, Prasad Bharati CEO Shashi Shekhar Vempati said,”Fantastic start to 2019 with Prasar Bharati’s news teams – DDNewsLive and airnewsalerts – marking milestones in the wider dissemination of news on both the digital and terrestrial fronts.” (UNI)
