All India Radio is planning to launch two 24-hour FM channels for Carnatic and Hindustani music by July this year

All India Radio is planning to launch two 24-hour FM channels for Carnatic and Hindustani music by July this year, said AIR Director General Brijeshwar Singh in Bangalore.

Addressing a press conference on the occasion of the golden jubilee celebrations of the AIR Bangalore station, he said that these channels would be available to Direct-to-Home (DTH) television subscribers.

While the 24-hour Hindustani channel will be launched in Lucknow the Carnatic channel will be shared by Bangalore and Trichy for 12 hours each.

Mr Singh said that during the next 12 months AIR would release 25 CDs and cassettes of old masters from its archival recordings. AIR earlier used to release CDs of old masters posthumously but henceforth it would also release the recordings of living legends starting with D K Pattammal, he added. He said that Bangalore Radio centre was the fourth one celebrating its golden jubilee in the country after Jaipur, Shimla and Bhopal last year.

On whether FM Rainbow can face the challenge posed by private FM channels which were coming up, he said that AIR was confident of facing the competition by broadcasting quality programmes.