Community Radio - concept, principle,Characteristics, Radio Programmes Format, Benefits of Community Radio

1. Community Radio
Mr.C.THATCHINAMOORTHY
Ph.D., Research Scholar
Department of Agricultural Extension
Faculty of Agriculture
Annamalai University
tmthatchupeaceful@gmail.com

2. RADIO
 Radio is an electronic audio- medium for
broadcasting programmes to the audience.
Radio is suitable for creating general
awareness amongst the people, help to
change their attitude and reinforce learning.

3. Community Radio
Community radio is a type of radio service
that caters to the interests of a certain area,
broadcasting content that is popular to a local
audience but which may often be overlooked
by commercial or mass-media broadcasters.
(UNESCO 2002).

4. What is Community Radio?
Community Radio has a short range and
caters to the information needs of
communities living in the surrounding
areas , owned, run and maintained by a
community.

5. Concept of Community Radio
Community radio is confined to a small
geographical area. It depends on low power
transmission covering not more than 20-30 km.
radius.
 It serves a community which uses common
resources for livelihood, has common
development issues and concerns, which are
relatively localized, nevertheless connected to
national and regional development goals.

6. Principles of Community Radio
• Non profit making
• community ownership and management
• community participation

7. Characteristics
• Its limited local reach
• low power transmission
• Programming content that reflects the
educational developmental
• Socio-cultural needs of the specific
community it serves.

8. Purpose
• A community is defined as a non-sectarian
group of individuals who are traditionally
bound and share a common socio-economic
and cultural interest.

9. Radio Programmes Format
• Interview
• Straight Talk
• Drama
• Vox-Pox
• Poetry

10. Steps of Participatory Message
Designing
o Need Assessment/Problem Find out
o Views taking through the target audience and experts
o Members of the studio read the data
o Discussion between the experts, target groups and
media practioniers
o Decision of the format
o Script writing
o Recording of the programmes
o Editing
o Packaging
o Broadcasting

11. Community Radio and Internet
• The internet holds potential for development,
especially in rural areas. For example, information
about agriculture can be downloaded from it, it can
be used to connect agricultural extension workers
with technical experts to discuss some particular
problem and it can be use to put communities in
contact with each other for online discussions and
debates about issues that effects them.

13. Cont…..
Integrating radio programming with the
internet is one way to reach out to villagers. If
the radio station has a computer with internet
access, programme producers can use in
enormous spectrum of information on
subjects of general concern of the audience.
Broadcasting such information can bring
internet to all the homes.

14. Community Radio for Agricultural
Development
• Agriculture has always been a highly
knowledge-intensive sector requiring
continuous information flow. Farmers’ quest
for authentic, credible and usable information
both from established systems and traditional
practices is ever increasing in this fluctuating
global environment, to operate efficiently and
compete economically.

15. Cont…..
• The rapid changes happening around with
WTO/globalization, uncontrolled urbanization,
uncertainty in climate change, discerning
consumer segment and continued farm crisis
emphasize the importance of timely,
appropriate and need based information and
knowledge to meet myriad developmental
challenges.

16. Cont…..
Agricultural extension is the vehicle or system for
delivering useful information to farmers and
assisting those farmers to develop requisite
knowledge, skills and attitudes to make use of this
information or technology effectively. In recent
times advances in Information and Communication
Technologies (ICTs) are revolutionizing agriculture
extension by offering various technological options
such as television, internet, mobile, telephony etc.

17. Cont…..
 Radio is a powerful communication tool.
 India’s post-independence experiments with ICT use in
agricultural development started with radio.
 A network of All India Radio (AIR) stations were
established across the country that broadcast
agricultural programmes in regional languages.
 AIR (now Prasar Bharathi) has been playing a
significant role since many years – bringing new
technological information on agriculture and other
allied subjects to the farmers.

18. Cont…..
 Recent liberalization of the broadcasting licensing
policy, Community Radio has received a new impetus
in India. This form of participatory communication has
proved to be very successful as a tool for social and
economic development at grass root level.
 The local community needs which are often neglected
by the mainstream media could be adequately
addressed by community radio. Even farmer to farmer
extension can be easily made possible through
adequate capacity building as the HAM radio
experience underway in Tamil Nadu and Andhra
Pradesh shows.

19. Cont…..
Experience with community radio has shown the
potential for agricultural extension to benefit from
both the reach and the relevance that local
broadcasting can achieve through participatory
communication approaches.
Extension workers use radio for communicating
information on new methods & techniques, giving
timely information about the control of crop pests &
diseases, weather, market news, etc. For this purpose,
talks, group discussions, folksongs, dialogues & dramas
are usually organised.

20. Benefits of Community Radio
Builds local identity, character and culture
through a diversity of programmes and content.
Promotes community access to local community
content.
Focuses on specific community issues concerns
and events.
Highlights various interest groups and community
personalities.
Shares local information by giving voice to the
voiceless.

21. Cont…..
Includes minority and marginalized community
members.
Facilitates mastery of radio equipment and basic
broadcasting techniques.
Promotes democratic process, social change,
development, civil society and good governance.
Acts as a form of public-service broadcasting
independent of government and party politics.
Relies on the community resources it serves
rather than the whole nation.

22. Challenges
Challenges of sustainability are common.
Developing content.
Difficulty developing local proposals at local
level.
Frequent disruptions in electricity, email, fax
and telephone connections delay
implementation.
Absence of technical expertise to service and
maintain equipment.

23. Community Radio in India…
• February 1995; Supreme Court of India ruled in its
judgment that "airwaves are public property". This came
as an inspiration to groups across the country, but to begin
with, only educational (campus) radio stations were
allowed.
• 2000; FM broadcasting was opened up to the private
sector for the first time, by charging prohibitively
expensive broadcasting fees.
• 3 July 2001; India's very first privately owned broadcasting
station Radio City went on air in Bangalore.
• December’02; Government of India announced a policy
for the grant of Community Radio Licenses to educational
institutions and organizations

24. Cont…..
• 1 February 2004 ; Anna FM is India's first campus
'community‘ radio, launched on, which is run by
Education and Multimedia Research Centre (EM²RC).
• 16 November 2006 ; Government of India notified
new Community Radio Guidelines which permit
NGOs and other civil society organizations to own
and operate community radio stations.
• 30 November 2008; There were 38 operational
community radio stations in the country. Of these,
two are run by NGOs and the rest by educational
institutions.

25. Dhan Foundation- Community Radio
• The Kalanjiam Community Radio station, which
currently narrowcasts the audio programmes, would
soon go on air once the Community FM license
issued by the GoI. The station is connected with the
Thagavalagam VICs through Local Area Network.
These VICs narrow cast the programmes produced
and sent by the Station through the Public Address
Systems fixed over towers.

26. Cont…..
• Presently programmes of 30-minutes duration are
presented daily. Also the CR Station has made an
arrangement with the AIR – Karaikal FM Station to
broadcast selected programmes once in a week for
fifteen minutes. Community radio programming
addresses local information and community needs that
revolve around disaster preparedness, livelihoods, local
best practices, women and children, health, education
and farming.

27. TNAU – Community Radio

28. TV gives everyone an image, but radio gives
birth to a million images in a million brains.
- Peggy Nonan