Soon, tune in to AIR news on private FM channels

New Delhi: The government on Tuesday allowed private FM radio stations to broadcast All India Radio news bulletins in English and Hindi. The AIR bulletins have to be carried in unaltered form along with the commercials which are broadcast during the news bulletins. Private FM broadcasters will have to give due credit to AIR for sourcing their news. The private FM broadcasters have to carry the AIR news bulletins either simultaneously or deferred live by not more than 30 minutes.

Minister of state for information and broadcasting Rajyavardhan Rathore launched this sharing facility of AIR News with private FM broadcasters on Tuesday. This will be done free of cost, initially on a trial basis till May 31, a government statement said.

Mr Rathore congratulated all I&B ministry officials for this initiative, and said the government’s priority was ensuring people’s awareness, which was why the service was made available free of cost. Saying an aware citizen was an empowered citizen, he added this would bring together all radio stations in India to inform, educate and empower people.

“Delighted to launch the sharing of @airnew-salerts bulletins with Private FM Channels. Awareness is empowerment and the broadcast of @airnewsalerts news bulletins by Private FM Channels is a wonderful public-private collaboration aimed at informing, educating & empowering people,” Mr Rathore tweeted.

Any private FM broadcaster which wants to broadcast the news bulletins will first have to register with the AIR News Services Division on its website http://newsonair.com at the Register Now tab. The broadcast of AIR News can be done only after accepting the terms and conditions, which can be found at http://newsonair.com/Broadcaster-Reg-TnC.aspx, the statement added.

The proposal to share AIR news bulletins with private FM broadcasters was pending for the past several years.