I see “Shakti”, the miraculous power of God, in radio.— Mahatma Gandhi
To begin with, two people’s works inspired me to give this heading. Firstly, American folk singer Pete Seeger’s song ‘Where have all the flowers goneIJ’, and secondly, a recent Odia album Radio Days, an anthology of radio songs created by Akshaya Mohanty and Devdas Chhotray at Cuttack in the 1960s.
The advent of free-to-air DTH Radio over a decade ago transformed into a dream come true for dedicated radio listeners like me. But recently, I was just curious to know in detail about some popular free radio apps for Android and iOS platforms, and so read their full description, reviews, ratings, rankings, etc.
My value-laden intent behind this curiosity was not to install and enjoy the best radio apps available for free; but to create a free Android app for a backwater community radio station (CRS) like Ravenshaw Radio 90.4 MHz, which has a zero reach at present, as the radio frequency (RF) is not going to the antenna due to a host of serious technical glitches.
As such, community radio stations have a very limited reach through a simple 50 W transmitter which hardly covers 5 km radius. It is well- understood that community radios, as a third model of radio broadcasting in addition to commercial and public broadcasting, are highly localised and meant for serving a very small listener base.
However, as Ravenshaw has a global presence from Cuttack to California, I hoped a free app would help connect the Ravenshavians with their alma mater, irrespective of their location and generation.
Besides, there has been a transcendental shift in the way people listen to radio nowadays, thanks to the free radio apps with an ever-growing list of channels from all around the world. FM radio listeners on their mobile phones are rapidly switching over to internet radio on highly affordable smartphones as it is hassle-free, and there is free and ubiquitous availability of Wi-Fi networks.
But then, some questions arise. Can the virtual internet radio ever replace the real traditional radioIJ And, would we ever call it a radio, even if it serves the purposeIJ Well, is it not that the redefinition of the word ‘Radio’ is going astray or too farIJ
Technically speaking, any sound transmitted over the internet can never be called radio. Moreover, to christen an automated personal audio stream as radio is simply ludicrous. Just remember the initial years of radio in India when one had to pay a fee and apply for a Domestic Radio licence which was issued under the Indian Telegraph Act 1885 duly signed by the local postmaster.
(Attached is a scanned copy of such a licence issued in 1969 in the name of my late maternal aunt) later, with the advent of the television, which came first to Sambalpur (where I was born and brought up for 30 years), the Radio and Television licence was combined and issued together. As a radio aficionado since my childhood, I found the licence book an invaluable document. No doubt, the present generation will find such a licence not only incredulous but also ridiculous.
Quintessentially speaking, radio has always a community at its core. It’s all about communicating with the local populace with a component of interactivity and intimacy of the highest kind with the radio presenters and listeners.
So, pushing the definition of radio as an intensively and extensively searchable personalised music stream over the Internet Protocol (IP) with no input from another human being is indeed sacrilegious. No doubt, internet radio is phenomenal and revolutionary. If newspapers, magazines and even books can be read over the internet, why not the radio channels, whether live or customisedIJ
But we should also think up new words for new things, and not contort the meaning of something that we already have a clear understanding of. Well, the linguists may justify it by saying that meanings of words are malleable and ductile just like gold and silver and are subject to extrapolation over time. But radio is always a sacrosanct word for its aficionados.
Apart from full discography music channels of famous singers, adding automated channels like Music for Massage and even an euphemistic Music for love channel, to the database of radio apps (PCRadio for instance which is rated No. 2), and calling it a radio channel is clearly an act of blasphemy.
Having said that, the World Radio Day, proclaimed by the UNESCO, is about celebrating radio, why we love it and why we need it today more than ever. It is a day to remember the unique power of radio to touch lives and bring people together across every corner of the globe.
So, I moot the possibility of allowing community radio stations (CRSs) to go online over free apps by the I&B Ministry in order to cater to the originally localised diaspora, which is now spread across the world, just like the Ravenshavians who still want to remain closely connected with their alma mater.
(The writer is a technical staff at Ravenshaw Radio, Cuttack.)