MUMBAI: All India Radio’s recent decision of making available AIR news bulletins to Private FM stations in the country is indeed a milestone decision and BIG FM, which is one of India’s leading radio network, has welcomed it.

Speaking about the same, BIG FM CFO Asheesh Chatterjee said, “It’s a baby step in the right direction. All India Radio News, which will be available in Hindi, English and various regional languages, is a highly reliable, trustworthy, high-quality news bulletin. And having that type of bulletin on private FM lends its own level of trust and credibility to the entire platform. So, it’s a very good step and we welcome the move by the government from a citizenship, democracy, information sharing perspective. It goes one step ahead and private FM can also contribute towards a more informed citizen.”

On being asked, how is BIG FM planning to integrate AIR bulletins in their network, Chatterjee revealed, “The terms and conditions do pose a bit of a challenge in terms of stationality and sound since All India Radio Bulletin has to be captured exactly in the same manner without any edit or truncation. So, we are looking at how we can integrate it seamlessly into our network and how many bulletins, we would carry in the morning, during the hour etc. So, we are still working on that aspect.”

When asked, how these bulletins would contribute to BIG FM’s radio space, Asheesh Chatterjee exclaimed, “Yes, this would help BIG FM and any private radio player to be another one stop shop for reliable trustworthy information. And I think our RJs, anyway, have been doing a lot in this direction, although news was not allowed. They have been doing quite a bit on social causes, on relevant information etc. So, it is a big boost from their perspective as the RJs have already built a positive influence, imagery for themselves and these will only add to that, equip them and they will be able to do more top and tail programming around these things towards social good.”

Lastly, on being asked, how will the initiative add to the revenue of BIG FM Chatterjee signed off, “This high quality, highly engaging, highly informative, authentic news led capsules will be good quality content and there will be advertisers, who will be willing to come in as sponsors during these capsules. So, we look forward to viewership increase, good loyal base of viewers, who will now regard this medium with more trust, which will enable our RJs to do even better programming. And of course revenues will flow because we are doing all the right things from a social cause perspective.”

With radio stations like BIG FM welcoming AIR’s milestone initiative, with open arms, we can anticipate a positive change for radio as a medium in India.