There is no denying that the press in India enjoys as much freedom as in most democracies, even though all governments, past and present, have tried to introduce through the backdoor some curbs on press freedom in the name 'national' or 'public' interest. In the case of radio, a kind of hidden censorship on news broadcast has always existed. First, there was a complete monopoly of the government over broadcast of news. When private players, in the shape of frequency modulation (FM) stations, sprouted as a result of 'liberalisation', they were not allowed to broadcast news and current affairs programmes.

A media controlled and run by the government will be considered a fettered media. Transferring the functioning of AIR and DD to an 'autonomous' body has made a difference only on paper; not in their actual day- to-day functioning. It is quite likely that these two organisations would have prospered and would not be in the red if they were allowed to function with real autonomy and thus compete with the private sector. The competition may look formidable because of the profusion of private channels but it is not, if one takes into consideration the quality of 'news' and related programmed dished out by them.

In this context, the suggestion of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) to the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting to allow FM operators to broadcast news and current affairs programmes certainly looks like a forward step. Restrictions on private operators from broadcasting news and news-related programmes make little sense when the medium of television, the 'big brother' of the broadcast industry in India, is given full freedom to broadcast news and current affairs programmes. The government will probably accept this suggestion.

The FM channels also have been keenly waiting for the ban on news broadcast to go. Right now they are saturated with popular music and want to become a more complete medium in terms of their output. By adding news to their menu FM channels hope to increase not only their audience but also their share in the mouth-watering advertising pie. The total radio revenue from advertising is expected to reach 6 percent of the total ad pie; an improvement from its less than 4 percent share till about two or three years ago, but still short of 10 to 12 percent in countries like the Philippines and Sri Lanka.

A question that may be nagging the FM station operators is that despite a many-fold increase in FM stations-from about 10 to nearly 300-the number of listeners as a percentage of the population went up from 45 to 53 percent only. The size of the listeners has to go up to boost ad revenues.

Tune in to any FM channel and all that one is likely to hear, any time of the day or night, is the same genre of music-mostly of the popular variety with not-so-old film music thrown in for some variety. If there are programmes devoted to classical or western music they are pushed to early morning, late night or some unearthly hours. FM stations in India are perhaps not really ready for 'serious' programmes, musical or newsy, as that will render the disk jockeys, all given to excessive chatter, jobless!

By presenting more of the same, the FM stations show a lack of innovation and imagination. The addition of news and current affairs may, therefore, be welcome. But those looking for transformation of 'music and entertainment' radio channels into serious news channels are probably asking for too much.

Hopefully, FM Radio, the 'little brother' (or 'poor cousin') of TV in India, will take some lessons from its senior sibling if only for the sake of establishing credibility and respectability.

What passes for news on most of the private TV channels today defies the very definition of news, at least in its conventional sense, and most often taxes credulity.

This will probably sound like an extreme view. But this writer did an impromptu survey among some friends who have long been critical of the government-controlled electronic media for both its 'propaganda' nature and staid style of news presentation. The amazing discovery was that all of them, repeat all of them, agreed that for 'news' they had now little choice but to turn to the government-controlled electronic media even when they knew that not all the news and views on the government media would pass the test of fairness or independence.

The upholders of 'press freedom' draw their guns the moment anyone mentions anything about bringing a 'code of conduct' for the private channels. 'Self censorship' is supposed to be the answer, the only way in which the private TV channels can be stopped from going over the top in the way they present and interpret 'news'.

While there has been no attempt to introduce voluntary or in-house regulations the contents and style of 'news' presentation on the private TV channels has proved to be infectious and is hitting the print media too. How will the private radio stations escape from this kind of journalistic infirmity?

TRAI has probably tried to pre-empt this by suggesting that at the initial stage the FM stations should restrict their source of obtaining news to AIR, DD, and 'authorised' news agencies. But it does not mean that the FM stations will have no freedom to sprinkle some 'spice' to the news they receive from 'authorised' sources. A particular song, for instance, can be played by 10 different disk jockeys but each one of them will have a different style of presenting it.

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