February 10, 2025
Mohammed Nadimul Haque’s Zero Hour mention on the need to nurture All India Radio (AIR) to transform it into a world-class national broadcaster
Sir, India has a great tradition of cricket commentary on the radio. This Government is killing that tradition. In the years gone by, radio cricket commentaries had some legends, Berry Sarbadhikary, Pearson Surita, Dicky Rutnagur, Anant Setalvad, Kishore Bhimani and others. Why is Indian cricket commentary on radio now in such a poor shape? With the exception of a few commentators like Shri Sushil Doshi and Shri Vinit Garg in Hindi and Shri Sunil Gupta and Shri Prakash Vagankar in English, it is boring. There is a huge potential for Akashvani to create good content and reach larger audiences by producing world-class cricket commentary. The BBC and ABC only use the best commentators always. Akashvani is India’s national broadcaster. It has 591 stations, reaching 98 per cent of the population. With its massive reach, it has huge potential to lead in this space. In the first three months of 2022, Akashvani averaged just two crore listeners per month. The number of podcast listeners in India is estimated to be 17 crores. Still, the BCCI and channels don’t give radio rights to Akashvani. Yes, they deprive Akashvani. Terrible! And Akashvani does not even send commentators to the venues, citing lack of funds. On top of that, one cannot hear cricket commentary on the medium wave, but only on FM radio or via an App called ‘News on Air’. This is absurd, Sir. An excellent way to further grow Akashvani’s listeners’ base would be to create world-class cricket commentary. For this to become a reality, my Party, All India Trinamool Congress, suggests that three things must be done urgently. One, have dedicated channels for each language. Having the Hindi and English commentators doing the commentary, as a pair, is the surest way to kill good radio commentary. Two, the selection procedure of commentators for Akashvani is an opaque process. To create a pool of top-notch commentators is essential to have an impartial and professional judging system. Three, from the Akashvani panel of commentators, it is essential to select those who have a thorough understanding of cricket and the style to engage the listeners. There is little use slotting cricket commentators on the principle that every person on the panel has to be given a chance. Sir, I would like to suggest to the Minister to implement these three suggestions and appoint Shri Harsha Bhogle as the captain of a new team whose task would be to make Indian radio cricket commentary world class. Thank you, Sir.
