All India Radio, Puducherry, was commissioned on 23rd September, 1967 in a rented building near Old Light House and shifted to own building on 2.10.1989, is completing 50 years of public service on 23rd September, 2017. To mark the Golden Jubilee of the station, a low profile function was arranged by the Recreation Club of AIR, Puducherry on 22.9.2017 at office premises with some joviality programmes by the staff members.
Pondicherry (or Puducherry), a French colonial settlement in India until 1954, is now a Union Territory town bounded by the south-eastern Tamil Nadu state. Its French legacy is preserved in its French Quarter, with tree-lined streets, mustard-colored colonial villas and chic boutiques. A seaside promenade runs along the Bay of Bengal and passes several statues, including a 4m-high Gandhi Memorial.
This Station is covering the Puducherry region of the Puducherry Union Territory, Cuddalore and Villupuram districts and Thiruvannamalai taluk of Thiruvannamalai district in Tamilnadu and few pockets of faraway places of Cuddalore, Villupuram, Thiruvannamalai & Nagapattinam districts of Tamil Nadu. The station functions with 2 x10 KW transmitter and covers 80 km radius in day time and 100 km in night time. At present the station is operating in the frequency of 1215 Khz with a radiating wave length of 246.9 mtr.
This station broadcasts on an average 400 hours of programme per month including relay of news, other coordinated programmes and National Programmes. AIR, Puducherry originate 10 mts. news bulletin in the Primary Channel. The station has a listening of 72.5% among the urban population and 61.5% among the rural population as per the latest Audience Research Survey Report. This station broadcast various special audience programme targeting youth, women, children, industrial workers etc. and also French and Hindi.
The studio set up was fully re-furnished with new digital consoles, computers, monitoring system, clock system, etc. Computers are being utilized for recordings/transmissions from 2003 (HDBS). The dubbing room was modified to have four computers with opted furniture and all the 15 computers in technical area were wired under single network system. One computer has been provided in Duty Room exclusively for RN recording. `Virtual Studio’ software was introduced in place of locally programmed software `Studio Manager’.
In addition to Primary Channel MW, FM 10 KW is also operating with stereo studio and 20 hours transmission of Puducherry Rainbow programme from 21.6.2008.
During the last five decades, many Central Ministers, Members of Parliament, Chief Ministers of Puducherry, State Ministers of Puducherry and other VVIPs such as Chief Executive Officers, Director Generals, senior officials from the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting, and Directorate have visited this station and expressed their satisfaction and happiness about the work atmosphere maintained by the station among staff members.
Source : A. Vijayakumar, DDE