Public broadcaster Prasar Bharati has decided to shut down All India Radio’s national channel and its regional training academies in five cities to cut costs and to “rationalise” services, PTI reported on Friday. The national channel and academies in Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Lucknow, Shillong and Thiruvananthapuram will be shut down immediately, the broadcaster said in an order dated Thursday.
The order said the decision was communicated to the All India Radio director general on December 24, 2018. “The programme, technical, ministerial and other staff posted at National Channel in Todapur and Nagpur etc, apart from those working at Regional Academies of Broadcasting and Multimedia in five cities, may be posted as per the requirement of the organisation,” the order said.
The order directed that the national channel’s programmes that are considered to be of archival value be sent to the central archives in Delhi for “digitisation and preservation for posterity”.
Prasar Bharati Chief Executive Officer Shashi Shekhar Vempati told ThePrint: “We have been reviewing areas that have not been effective and where technology is getting obsolete and will invest in new areas that we expect to be relevant and technology is forward looking, such as digital. This is an ongoing exercise and will continue.”
The radio channel was set up in 1987 and broadcast content from 6 am to 6 pm.
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