RADIO GA GA: The Then And Now Of Radio Broadcasting

All India Radio (AIR), India’s one and only radio broadcaster until 1993, turns 85 this year. Here’s looking at the radio broadcasting industry #thenandnow and time travelling back to the early 1980s on World Radio Day.

1980 to 2021. How was radio broadcasting 41 years back? How has it transformed in four decades? We time travelled back to the 80s with radio broadcast stalwarts – Vijayalaxmi Chhabra, 65 and Rini Simon Khanna, 57. Chhabra was the well-known face of AIR before she went on to head the Sales and Marketing of Doordarshan and retired as Director General. Khanna is the unforgettable voice of India and DD news anchor who started her career as a newscaster with AIR. Giving us some current bytes is Karan Edward Machado, 28, host of Good Morning Bangalore on 94.3 Radio One – better known to his listeners as RJ Kay.

The Past And The Present: Being on AIR for 20 years

Chhabra’s love for radio goes back to her childhood in Bhilai, a small but cosmopolitan steel township in Chhattisgarh. “A native of Odisha, my father was an engineer in the Bhilai Steel Plant and I grew up there. My parents were extremely liberal and being the eldest daughter, their expectation of me was tremendous. My father was an avid radio listener and very particular that I was getting the best of education and honing my language skills well. He insisted I listened to radio for the same.”

Radio, in those days, happened to be the sole source of not just entertainment, but also knowledge on current affairs, international relations, classical music, arts and culture and more. We had a Bush Radio and it was considered to be one of the prized possessions we had and was kept on the topmost shelf,” recollects Chhabra.

Chhabra got hooked on to radio and could not imagine her life without it. “My craze for radio was such that my father made me two speakers with long wires that could be carried from the drawing-room to my own room. On the days we would have guests at home, I would listen to the radio from my room without any interruption,” she recalls. Apart from listening to news and documentaries, Chhabra loved listening to dramas and the National Program of Drama was her favourite show on AIR.

Golden memories at All India Radio, Mumbai

Her father wished that she join the civil service but Chhabra wanted to become a radio broadcaster, working on youth programs on AIR and DD during college. She joined All India Radio in 1980 through Indian Broadcasting Service (IBS) which was a public service and required her to clear the UPSC exam. She topped the list.

“Radio broadcasting has been through a significant evolution over the last few years,” says Chhabra. She believes the job is tougher today. “Earlier, AIR used to be the only broadcasting platform covering education, entertainment, news and everything all by itself. Now we have multiple private channels which are very contemporary. It has become fiercely competitive and the commercial aspect has become more important than content. The challenges of today are different with not only competition with private TV channels but also from OTT platforms. I really can’t compare today’s radio with our times. Their jobs have become more challenging.”

“The primary difference that I observe is that the job of today’s announcers is only to entertain and their language is so different. In our time it was not so and the announcers had to be impeccable in everything, especially the language, and they needed to speak really well. Content certainly keeps changing with time but the language should not be diluted. Also, all the channels of recent times sound so alike. Planning should be made to bring in variety so that every channel would have different flavours and each station would have its niche audience,” she says.

Chhabra doesn’t think radio will die. “Digital radio is such a big thing today and anybody can start a podcast. Radio is a very personal space, refuels your imagination and is a dynamic medium. With the help of technology and social media, radio will certainly go a long way and create more magic with the voice,” says Chhabra.

For Rini Simon Khanna, joining All India Radio was quite a story

In 1979 Rini Simon Khanna was a schoolgirl when her career with radio broadcasting began. She was in standard 11 and at the prestigious Shankar competition’s prize distribution ceremony when the then Minister of Information and Broadcasting, Vasant Sathe heard her voice and told her she should be on the radio. He connected her with the reporters from All India Radio covering that event and soon Khanna received an audition call from AIR, cracked it and started working in Yuva Vani.

The job taught her scriptwriting, the art of speaking and the grammar of it all. She worked with Delhi B, General Overseas Service and more as an announcer, voiced for documentaries and feature films on AIR, read news and did live commentary on the radio for several events while still a student! Khanna has been attached with radio news reading until 2007 and even now goes back to the station to select and train radio newsreaders and for voicing and commentary.

Rini Simon Khanna at work in the radio station

“BBC radio was a huge part of my growing up and learning. I loved listening to Radio Moscow, the signature tunes and Srilankan broadcasters. Binaca Geetmala by Amin Sayani is till now a fabulous time capsule. My fascination with listening to new voices, their choice of words, way of handling a topic still remains. For me, radio is the easiest and cost-effective way of travelling the world,” she says.

There’s a lot that can be learnt and done on radio today, believes Khanna.

“Although a lot of things can be explored via radio broadcasting, sadly, all private channels are catering to only music, that too just the Bollywood industry. There are no news, documentaries and features. Only AIR offers a complete package – news, weather, natural disasters, knowledge about certain festivals. Western music is also limited,” she rues.

Radio is the quietest space without any chaos in today’s mass communication, says RJ Kay

Karan Edward Machado aka RJ Kay is a young jockey in radio broadcasting and joined Radio One as an intern in 2013. After finishing his college, he joined the same radio network in 2015 as a digital producer. He is currently the youngest morning show (Good Morning Bangalore) host on India’s only international radio network.

“In a largely digital age, only the radio has the power to personally connect with its listeners. I try to make myself relatable and approachable by consciously being on the same level as my listeners. While many perceive radio from the context of only speaking, I think it is also very much about patient listening which is rare these days. Today’s radio broadcasting is more about giving that quiet and chaos-free state to the listeners, one-on-one, to listen and feel good.

According to RJ Kay, in the world of mass communication that’s too noisy, radio provides the solace. “However, when things like radio live streaming start, radio will have a further huge scope to explore. There’s much more that radio can do by imbibing more digitalisation and it could be a combination of honesty and credibility. Radio symbolises innovation through audio and being an integral part of someone’s routine and that will never fade,” he says, signing off.