Install more FM towers to reach out to cellphone users: Prasar Bharti CEO

NEW DELHI: Prasar Bharati CEO Jawhar Sircar today said that All India Radio (AIR) should consider installing more FM towers to take advantage of the opportunity presented by mobile phones which can receive radio signals.

He said that most cellular phone sets nowadays were capable of receiving radio signals provided they were in the Frequency Modulation (FM) mode.

Noting that all AIR stations had mandatory medium wave towers, Sircar said what was needed was to install a parallel FM tower alongside those. While the FM tower would only have an 80-km range, that would cover a majority of the local population, he added.

AIR radio stations could also be brought on to the Doordarshan DTH platform, he said.

Sircar was speaking at a conference organised by the Broadcast Engineering Society.

Meanwhile, he hinted that Doordarshan's DTH platform may have up to 97 channels from April of this year.

I&B Minister Manish Tewari was also present on the occasion.