Audio bonanza for Indian music listeners

Indian music lovers at home and overseas will be able to tune in to a wide variety of general entertainment audio channels from India when...

Indian music lovers at home and overseas will be able to tune in to a wide variety of general entertainment audio channels from India when the Asiastar satellite becomes fully operational in July.

Asiastar, belonging to the US-based WorldSpace Corporation, will beam not only radio programmes in English and Hindi from state-owned All India Radio (AIR), but also progammes in the four south Indian languages — Kannada, Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam — that will be brought to them by Menon Impex Ltd, a company owned by Raji Menon, promoter and chairman of Asianet Communications.

An agreement was signed here between Menon and Harold Adams, president and CEO of WorldSpace Corporation, and a similar agreement was signed between Adams and AIR officials in Delhi.

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"AIR would be able to reach more audiences through our other satellite, Afristar," says Adams. "This is a breakthrough technology we are bringing to India because India is the biggest market in the world today."

With three beams, each of which covers an area of over 14 million sq kms, Asiastar will be able to deliver a wide variety of programming ranging from the global to regional language channels in crystal-clear, near-CD quality sound.

The channels can be accessed through digital audio receivers that cost $120 each. Is the Indian market ready for such costly receivers? "It would all depend upon the marketing of the receivers currently being produced by international majors like JVC, Panasonic, Hitachi and Sanyo. But we are thinking of transferring the technology to local manufacturers, which would bring down the cost considerably," explains Adams.

"We are also thinking of selling the receivers to television cable operators. In fact, the cable splitters and other equipment are manufactured in Bangalore. This would not only cut down the costs, but also popularise the digital receivers," says M Sebastian, director, business development, WorldSpace India.

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Menon Impex is investing Rs 50 million in the digital audio channels. "I am ready for a no-income period of two years," says Menon. He is also planning to set up a radio uplinking station either here or in Kochi, Kerala, to broadcast programmes on Asiastar.

"You may ask why audio. It was my dream to do something for Kerala and south India and to focus also on the educational and social areas," adds Menon.With the lease of channels on Asiastar, Menon is negotiating to take over the `L’ band in Russia. "Our current target for India in the first year of one million would be chickenfeed for Moscow once we offer Russian language channels," says Menon.

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