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Jig to FM Radio now

Who said TV has put the radio in the shadows? The radio is making a comeback, step by step. Come Monday and Kochi FM will have FM Rainbow, where music of all colours will be aired

ALL EARS The radio is once again coming into its own. Photo: SAMPATH KUMAR

Let's hope you never leave old friend

Like all good things on you we depend

So stick around cos we might miss you

When we grow tired of all this visual

You had your time, you had the power

You've yet to have your finest hour

Radio - Radio

Goes the classic song by the English band `Queen'. The radio is yet to have its finest hour. But it looks like radio is going to have its finest hour in Kochi with the launch of AIR Kochi's new FM channel, FM Rainbow. For those who thought that the television-takeover of living space and mind-space was complete, this will come as a pleasant surprise. It is not yet time to hit the panic button. Listening to radio is going to get more fun, and you just need a radio for it!

Not so long ago, we were hit by the Worldspace blitzkrieg and suddenly there is music everywhere. The radio is everywhere, walk into store, a salon, a restaurant you just cannot escape the radio.

Advantage radio

As a result, like television, there are several channels to surf, different kinds of music to listen to and the proverbial icing on the cake is that you can tune in to the radio and listen to it whenever you want, yes, 24/7. The problem with this kind of radio is that you do not get it when you drive, you have to be at a place and these are times when most people in Kochi spend a considerable amount of time commuting to and from work. To tune in to this kind of station, you need many things, for instance a subscription, whereas with FM you just need a radio. However, Kochi, which has a lot of things to boast about, does not have much to boast about on the FM channel front: We really acannot call it nammude. Therefore, drivers dread tuning in to the radio because, as a listener eloquently puts it, "most of the time it sounds like the old Krishi Darshan on Doordarshan." A station like Worldspace is great but you cannot take it with you like the radio and tune in to it while driving, for instance. This is where AIR Kochi's new FM channel, FM Rainbow, comes in.

"FM Rainbow will provide listeners with 17 hours of non-stop entertainment. This will be a youth oriented station with lots of shows that will interest the youth. For instance, there will be chat show, live shows and phone-in programmes. This will be an interactive channel, where our presenters will interact with listeners, plus we will be borrowing some content from FM Rainbow Delhi to cater to the North Indian population," says G. Jayalal, Deputy Director General, AIR, South Zone. The channel will be launched on June 26. Listeners can tune in to FM Rainbow at 107.5 MHz from 6.00 a.m. to 11.00 p.m.

The advantage of launching such a channel, according to Jayalal, is that it is available to everyone and almost the whole day.

Only in Kochi

The service is available only in Kochi, in Kerala, because Kochi is ready to join the metro bandwidth. This will change the face, or rather the sound of entertainment, and this is where Kochi comes `in' or rather tunes `in' with the times.

Long, long ago, entertainment at home meant airwaves and so there was All India Radio (AIR), BBC, Radio Ceylon, and Voice of America, which were the staple of radio listeners. Entertainment meant Vividh Bharati.

And then somewhere along the line came the `tele-takeover', then came FM radio with lots of music and then the airwaves (in the metros) were raided by stations such as Radio Mirchi, Radio City and similar sounding channels. So far these channels have been defining the lifestyle of the denizens of the cities. Driving or chilling out at home, the radio jockey is everyone's best friend. Weather forecasts, and news telecasts are also there but there is also info on more important stuff such as roads to avoid and thereby the traffics snarls to avoid, easiest way to get to a place, best shopping deals, movies to watch and to miss, agony aunts/uncles are all available at the turn of a knob or at the press of a button.

So, get those radios you put away out, get them repaired, dust them, tune them, for radio is just about to get better. Maybe all we will hear will be the radio.

SHILPA NAIR ANAND

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