New Delhi : Minister for information and broadcasting Prakash Javadekar on Wednesday surprised the Private FM Radio industry by ruling out any immediate permission to carry private news on FM radio stations, contrary to his earlier promises of looking into the matter “positively”
This move was a shocking news for private FM stations as they were expecting that they would be allowed to broadcast news.
Answering a question in the Lok Sabha on Wednesday, Mr. Javadekar said that private FM radio companies would be allowed to broadcast news only from the bulletins of state owned All India Radio (AIR)
The restriction was also very stringent that private FM radio companies will be allowed to carry AIR news bulletins in exactly the same format as aired by AIR under the terms and conditions agreeable with Prasar Bharati .
However, He gave a future hope stating that the FM radio policy could be relaxed in the future “…in view of the dynamic nature of news.
Also information pertaining to traffic, weather, coverage of cultural events as well as public announcements related to health, civic amenities or natural calamities would be treated as non-news and, therefore, be allowed on FM radio.
Private FM Radio owners were upset with the announcement as they were hoping to attract new listeners to FM Radio.
Research shows that there is a considerable amount of listeners who are willing to spend more time for the sake of infotainment based content and the FM owners dream to increase the Radio listeners universe by introducing news in their program line-up was shattered.
Few private FM Radio owners even had the plan of switching to fultime news Radio instead of depending on Music and Jock talk.
