New Delhi: The Association of Radio Operators for India (AROI), the apex body representing India’s private FM radio industry, has elected Vijay Garg, Chief Financial Officer of MY FM, the radio division of Dainik Bhaskar Group (D B Corp Ltd.), as its new President. Garg succeeds Anurradha Prasad, Chairperson and Managing Director of BAG Network (Radio Dhamaal), who resigned at the AROI AGM held on August 10, 2026, after leading the association’s policy advocacy efforts for 15 years.
Garg assumes the role at a crucial time for the private radio sector, which reaches more than 200 million listeners every week. The industry is seeking policy action across four key areas: permission to broadcast independent news and current affairs; extension of Phase III licences on the 4% Adjusted Gross Revenue model approved by the Union Cabinet for new cities; rationalisation of GST on radio from 18% to 5%, in line with print; and making the 2023 MeitY advisory on activating FM receiver chips in mobile phones a mandatory directive.
A Cost and Management Accountant by training and a graduate of the University of Delhi, Garg has nearly three decades of experience in financial and business leadership, including more than two decades in the radio industry. He began his career in corporate finance with Oberoi Hotels & Resorts before moving into broadcasting as Chief Financial Officer of Red FM. He joined the Dainik Bhaskar Group’s radio business in 2007 and currently serves as CFO for the Group’s radio and some other businesses.
He has also been associated with the expansion of MY FM from a regional network into one of India’s larger FM footprints, with the network moving towards 44 stations across Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Haryana, Punjab and Chandigarh.
Within the industry, Garg has been involved in discussions around the economics of radio, including licence fees, spectrum costs, tax structures and the economics of small-town broadcasting. He has also contributed to AROI’s submissions to the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting and the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India.
Commenting on his election, Vijay Garg said, “I am deeply honoured by the confidence the industry has placed in me. Radio is India’s most local, most inclusive and most cost-efficient mass medium — it speaks to the country in its own languages, free of cost, and it stays on air when every other network goes down. Yet the sector today carries a cost structure built for a very different era. My focus as President will be simple and unrelenting: secure media parity for radio, make the economics of the licence sustainable, correct the tax anomaly, and get FM chips switched on in every phone sold in this country. If we get these right, radio will not merely survive — it will power the local economies of Tier 2 and Tier 3 India for the next decade.”
Garg also acknowledged his predecessor’s contribution, saying that Anurradha Prasad’s tenure had “given the industry a united voice and put radio’s case squarely before the Government,” while adding that the incoming leadership would build on that foundation.
AROI represents private commercial FM radio broadcasters across India. Its members operate hundreds of stations across metros and Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities, reaching more than 200 million listeners every week in over a dozen languages. The association engages with the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting, TRAI and other authorities on policy, regulation and the long-term growth of India’s radio and audio industry.
