All India Radio, Panjim, Goa will be celebrating Indian Broadcasting Day today, July 23, 2019. While tuning in to the radio is not very common now, in the early 1960s and till the 1980s, it was the only platform for music and news. However AIR has used the internet to connect to the Goan diaspora the world over and ironically, the march of modernisation is actually getting the love for radio back
Remember the lines of this song
Video killed the radio star
Video killed the radio star
Pictures came and broke your heart
And now we meet in an abandoned studio (ohh)
We hear the playback and it seems so long ago
And you remember the jingles used to go ……
Recorded by Bruce Wooley, the song laments some twentieth century innovations which offset traditional ones like the video superseding radio.
Goans who lived in the Portuguese era recount how intrinsic the radio was to their lives, connecting them not just to neighbouring villages but to India and the rest of the world
As we observe Indian Broadcasting day, when the Indian Broadcasting Company (IBC) began organized radio broadcasting with the first programme which was aired in Mumbai on July 23, 1927, the milestone is not merely that of history. It's actually a historical look back when radio was not just a medium for the broadcast of news and culture but the medium itself was intrinsic to the culture of the land.
As AIR Goa prepares to celebrate this day, it can surely announce that video hasn't quite killed the radio star. As it reaches to the diaspora through the internet, it still remains the star.
And this is how the start was born. Giving a brief history of how broadcasting arrived in Goa, FM Rainbow Programme Executive, Savio de Noronha says, "José Ferreira Martins, a radio amateur, donated a small transmitter to a group of enthusiasts. Encouraged by this offer, these young men improvised a microphone using a coconut shell for its outer covering, and started broadcasting under the technical guidance of Victor Carvalho, an engineer at the Panjim Telegraph Station"
The birth of Emissora de Goa
The first experimental broadcast took place on May 28, 1946 and on the same day, the then Governor General, Dr José Ferreira Besa released a special stamp to commemorate the occasion. A government decree that the radio station would be called Emissora de Goa was issued. Following the liberation of Goa, in January 1962, Emissora de Goa, was re-christened as All India Radio and has had a glorious history since then – now known as the Mhadei Channel on MW 1287 Khz. July 1971, saw the arrival of Vividh Bharati service to Goa, its legendary presenters and fantastic programming has a pan-India presence and is hugely popular."
The arrival of the 'Rainbow'
In January 1994, AIR's flagship channel, FM 105.4 Mhz was live. "Besides the metros in our country, Goa got the privilege of commissioning its stereo service, ultimately developing into AIR FM Rainbow – its programming has been par excellence dishing out music in Konkani, English, Hindi, Marathi and Portuguese, Hindustani and Western Classical. All its programmes are live and listeners are treated to a different Radio Jockey everyday," adds Savio.
Meet the artists who became stars.
Tomazinho Cardozo from Candolim is a director, actor and was one of the first Konkani singers to sing live for All India Radio. Reminiscing about his experience performing for the main entertainment platform at that time, Tomazinho says, "We didn't even have a radio in our home and we used to go to neighbours house to listen to music and news. It was a luxury to own a radio or a gramophone. During the Portuguese rule, the Emissora de Goa had programs highlighting the achievements of the Portuguese and often criticising the Indian government. After Liberations, All India Radio had different programs and including 'Kantaram' where five songs were recorded in Konkani by an artist and that singer would be paid Rs 6-7 in 1964-65 which was very big money then. One could not just get on the radio and sing. They would have auditions and the best were given a contract for the show. Before the recordings, it was live singing, you sang directly live on air with no room for errors," says Tomazinho, whose brother, Joao was the fourth singer who recorded post liberation on All India Radio.
Some of the best and most noted singers, Tomazinho mentions are Allan Costa, Johnny Sylvester, Paul Fernandes, Ismelia D'Mello, Dioguinho D'Mello and Baleruino Araujo and not forgetting the musicians who added beauty to those vocals especially music director of All India Radio, Antonio D'Souza from Siolim.
Vasco Pinho, a historian has lived through the Liberation of Goa and was an avid listener of the radio which he calls the state of the art. "In those days, we had quite a powerful transmitter which was a great leap forward and very popular. Most people had a radio and it was a great means of entertainment and news. The three most popular stations were Colombo, BBC and Voice of America I have also dedicated a chapter on the Radio in Goa in the third volume of my book, 'Snapshots of Indo-Portuguese History III: Panjim Then and Now," says Vasco, a resident of Panjim, at the foot of the Altinho Hill which houses the All India Radio station.
And there she was, Goa's first woman jokey Imelda
The voice of, Goa's first woman radio jockey, Imelda Dias captured the hearts and minds of radio listeners in Goa during the late sixties and seventies. Imelda worked for 27 years in the radio, starting off as an announcer at the commercial services of Radio Goa in 1958 and retiring as Transmission Executive of All India Radio in 1985. The station was later named Emissora de Goa in 1946, where she worked as an announcer, news reader and translator being fluent in English and Portuguese.
Her daughter, Margarida Tavora, who owns Nostalgia, Raia, was only ten years old when Goa's Liberation took place but was in awe of the love and admiration her mother received. "The Radio was the main hub for news, entertainment and music. After Mass on Sundays, people would tune in to 'Your Favourites' a show my mother hosted and she would get messages on postcard requesting a song, especially messages from a boy or girl dedicating a song to their loved one. It was the only entertainment in the 1960s and the programs catered to everybody. Then most housewives were not working and they would listen to the radio throughout the day. There was no traffic and the only sound would be a loud radio. Radio marked the era of Goa's golden age for us Tavora siblings," says Margarida.
Besides, being a radio channel in Goa, AIR has reached out to the listening pleasure of its Goan diaspora. It is now available on Prasar Bharati's digital global platform and one can download the app 'Newsonair'. AIR is also very popular on social media through their facebook and twitter handles.
It clearly hasn't paused or remained in rewind mode but very actively gone fast forward to ensure that neither video, not any other medium could kill radio, the real star.
Source :-https://ift.tt/2OfGGBq
Forwarded by:- Shri. Alokesh Gupta , alokeshgupta@gmail.com