All India Radio Shuts Down National Channel & Training Academies In 5 Cities

The National Channel and regional academies in five cities of All India Radio is going to be shut down as a decision from Public broadcaster Prasar Bharati as an attempt to rationalize services and cut costs.

According to the order, this decision was sent to the director general of AIR on 24 December 2018.

This order also directed that programs of the national channel that can be considered as an archival value will be sent to the central archives for “digitization and preservation for posterity.”

Some sections within the All India Radio aren’t happy with this decision because they firmly believe that the National Channel was still an essential part of the broadcasts and there could be still plenty of ways to reduce the costs than just shutting everything down.

For example, a source told PTI that they could try live-streaming or making it an application-based service. Instead of closing it down, they should have focused on strengthening the national channel.

The radio station was initially launched in 1936 which was the time when Indian State Broadcasting Service officially became All India Radio on 8 June 1936.

AIR is one of the world’s biggest radio network and also one of the world’s biggest broadcasting organizations regarding the number of languages broadcast and also the spectrum of cultural and socio-economic diversity it serves.

Home service of AIR consists of 420 stations across India, reaching around 92 percent of India’s area and 99.19 percent of the country’s total population. AIR originates programs in 23 languages and 179 dialects.

This is truly a piece of sad news for many people, especially those who have grown up listening to All India Radio. The All India Radio Signature Tune was composed by the Czech music director of AIR.