102.6 FM Rainbow, Delhi. Review on Radio Mirchi - Kolkata

Radio was once a grandpa's favorite toy and now it seems it has graduated well above in the generation's choice. Who would like to discard FM today for grandpas alone to enjoy, not me and trust me not you. It has the power to snatch that precious part of your life called Time, you tune to it while you drive , you tune to it while you are down on the bed, you tune to it while you are on the run, there is no genuine escape from the FM today.

So whats so great about the FM and where was it all these years. Well Radio broadcast started with a Mono AM and then moved onto Stereo when someone realized that music can be entertaining too, on the radio, So there came the Stereo concept on AM which though never arrived in India all which did in 1993 in Delhi on 15th Aug was AIR FM Stereo with a jingle in the voice of Shibani Kashyap, then as a college kid equally unknown as the channel for which she sang.

Rishi K (Rishikesh Kannan), Shamshir Luthra,Roshan Abbas , the great Yuri and towards late Fiza Khan, OP Rathore, Manisha Dubey found a new life, a life of thousand fans and a kick of 100 nuclear tons all by just chatting on the radio, playing the music which they feel ''connects'' and connect it did.

Times arrived and swept away the dullest and the most non intrested of human species to its world of entertainment, soon there were love stories shared on the radio with Yuri and Saima or Sujoy or numerous other RJs. College romance was its best and all out in the open .

Too much good is never good enough so the Supreme Court by its one judgement brought it all to a stage where radio was to loose its charm, TImes out of the airwaves and now it was back to Casual RJs on AIR FM-1. But more good was to follow and so in the Year 2001, July the first FM private station went to broadcast with Rohit Barker and Veera Malkani shouting to the world that a new life has arrived, Bangalore never felt better before. It followed to Mumbai and Ahemdabad and Indore and Lucknow to even Delhi and Madras and Calcutta. Jonathan became Nitin and moved to Mirchi, Sachin and Aroma moved to Red, Fiza and Saima and Pallavi moved to Mirchi and Parvati and Sunny returned to Rainbow. AIR managed to hold onto OP Rathore, Narender Joshi, Rama Pandey, Manish Dubey, Shruti Raizada and many more. New kids like Dev on Mirchi, Safia on Red, Fakhruddin on Rainbow emerged.

Radio was at its peak in year 2003 when it started in Delhi with the private stations but, over a period of time though not accepted and agreed, radio is loosing its grip again. Listeners have become smart with the choices around with competition from FLash memory based Tiny little MP3 Players and ipods stations have to innovate and connect with the listeners all the time. Its become so challenging and complicated and confusing that most of the time listeners themselves dont know what they want. Top it with luring concepts like Big prize money its all now gotten to ''buying '' the listeners.

Slowly and gradually people are turning back towards the borest of all, Rainbow FM and starting to like for what it distinctively offer :- RJs trash with ahems and dead airs, almost complete tracks, western music and almost no screaming adverts and NO prize money traps. The bosses at FM Rainbow want the listeners to stand up and bug them for their lousy programing so that they can improve. Rainbow worked on their most popular show called Namaskaar Dilli and put their soberest of all RJs on their 6am show and it worked. They started Funda Fit and Gana hit at 12pm to capture on the housewives and they succeeded like never before, so much so that all the private stations who were harping about bollywood earlier switched their content towards shows like ''khoobsurat'' all for and by women during that time slot. AIR couldnt handle the Competition and adulation and scrapped the show. Rainbow started another show in 2003 May called ''rainbow Music Masti'' to bring about a new concept of a male and female ''harping'' 9pm on sundays with fast music and SMS thrown in, it was instant hit with the students who could not help but laugh on talks like ''hello tum kya kar rahi ho-> mein ''wait'' kar rahi hoon-> ohh wazan bard gaya kya tumhara>-> wazan!! woh kyon bard gaya->well kam to ho nahin sakta, ab ''weight'' kar rahi ho to badha hee hoga..laugh laugh'' it frustates you like never before but soon u give in and start liking it for the music is good and then later u start looking forward to that rubbish for it manages to bring a disdainful smile and with topics which catch you by the nerve you also shoot the SMS verdict on them. Red also enlightened itself to the similar concept though a year later in the form of Jawani Janeman on Sunday noon 11am or maybe 12pm but minus the SMS. Yet Again of late Rainbow let go its grip on the show with new RJs, Fakhru and Suchi were the best on the show however the new RJs are fighting hard to match their ''fire''. Rainbow also realized that all the stations were competing for the listerners on weekdays with their best RJs and letting go the weekends with the second in commands, so Rainbow brought their best of the lots and gave them new shows on weekend under the umbrella ''Weekend Manoranjan Khazana'' last year, and OP Rathore(Sunday 10am and 7pm) Narendra Joshi(3pm sundays), Rama Pandey(12pm and 11pm saturdays), Arjumand (Sunday 11pm) Fakhruddin Ahmed(Sundays 1pm,4pm), Lalima(Sundays 4pm,6pm) gave what Rainbow needed, an edge which private channels are finding as a good competition. Fakhruddin came out with a game show ''Midday Hungama'' (1pm sunday)playing Tambola on radio, an innovation which is hard to match, Lalima and Fakhru with Dr Ritu (shows director) with Quiz show (Rainbow Genius, 4pm on sunday(now moved to thursdays 4pm)which has ppl calling from even jalandhar and roorkee, OP with ''hum sey hai zamana'' a talent hunt show at 7pm. Arjumand(Lamha lamha zindagi,11PM) came with Ghazals and shaiyri and soon you could hear ghazals and shairi on all the channels in the night.

Western Music hasnt seen any competition and so AIR has managed to keep the shows as they were leaving them at the mercy's of the RJs but I am sure with a little bit of pressure even that would set to improve.

Radio in Delhi is going to see a major revolution soon with the Second wave of liberization hitting and one needs to see of the 390 new stations in 40 cities how many dare to hit the delhi airwaves. Hindustan Times has tied up with Virgin Radio to (hopefully) bring in Western Music FM and Midday is due to return to Delhi and Jagran with the success of Channel7 would be more than eager to please your eardrums. Honestly speaking with an investment of just 1 crore and how much(5%?) revenus sharing with the govt even I would be willing to dole out my own radio station. Anybody to finance? !!

..If you think I am baised to Rainbow just coz I am a RJ with them myself, write in a comment for this is meant to be non biased..