The Role of Radio and Television as Information Sources

Long before smartphones and on-demand apps, a single radio set in a village square or a black-and-white television in a neighbour’s living room could bring an entire community together to learn about the world. Broadcasting stations, the studios and transmitters behind radio and television, have served as some of the most far-reaching institutions for spreading information. For students of library and information science, understanding these stations matters because they function as organised sources of knowledge, much like libraries and archives, but with the power to reach millions at once. This post explains how radio and television became key information sources, the educational channels built on them, their role in news and cultural preservation, and where they are headed in the digital age.

Broadcasting media: a powerful information tool 🔗

Broadcasting is the transmission of audio and video content to a wide, scattered audience through radio waves or satellite signals. A broadcasting station is the institution that produces and sends out this content. What makes broadcasting special as an information source is its reach. A single transmission can inform people who cannot read, who live far from any library, or who have no access to the internet. This is why broadcasting became central to nation-building after independence.

The rise of radio as a public voice 🔗

Organised radio in the country began with private enthusiasts. Radio broadcasting started in June 1923 when the Radio Club of Bombay made the first-ever broadcast, soon followed by the Calcutta Radio Club. The privately owned Indian Broadcasting Company began formal operations in 1927 but went into liquidation, after which the government stepped in. All India Radio was established as the Indian State Broadcasting Service in 1930, renamed All India Radio in 1936, and aired its first broadcast on 19 January 1936.

The importance of radio became clear immediately. At independence in 1947, AIR had only six stations yet it was through this medium that Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s “Tryst with Destiny” speech reached the nation. Today, All India Radio operates a vast network covering nearly the entire geographic area and almost the full population, broadcasting in over 20 languages and many more dialects. This scale makes radio one of the most inclusive information sources available.

Television enters Indian homes 🔗

Television followed decades later. Doordarshan began on 15 September 1959 as an experimental service, with UNESCO contributing funds and television sets to support its launch. In its early years the focus was strongly educational, treating television as a tool for development rather than entertainment. The name was changed from “Television India” to Doordarshan, meaning “seeing from afar,” in 1976, reflecting its growing reach across the country.

A turning point came with the Satellite Instructional Television Experiment (SITE) in 1975, which transmitted programmes to satellite-linked television sets installed in villages and towns. This early use of satellite technology showed that broadcasting could carry classroom-style education directly to rural areas, a principle that still guides educational channels today.

The institutional backbone: Prasar Bharati 🔗

Both radio and television now sit under one public service broadcaster. Prasar Bharati was established under the Prasar Bharati Act, 1990, and came into existence on 23 November 1997, with the mandate to inform, educate and entertain through radio and television. Akashvani (All India Radio) and Doordarshan are its two constituents. The creation of an autonomous body was meant to give broadcasting greater editorial independence after years of direct government control, a shift recommended by committees such as the Chanda Committee and the Verghese Committee.

Educational broadcasting: Gyan Vani and Gyan Darshan 🔗

Among the most important uses of broadcasting as an information source is formal education delivered at a distance. The Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) built dedicated channels for exactly this purpose, turning broadcasting stations into virtual classrooms.

Gyan Darshan: the educational television channel 🔗

Gyan Darshan, the first educational television channel of the country, was launched in January 2000 through IGNOU’s Electronic Media Production Centre. It was a joint venture of the Ministry of Human Resource Development, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Prasar Bharati and IGNOU, with IGNOU acting as the nodal agency. Within a year of its launch it became a 24-hour transmission channel carrying educational programmes for a wide range of viewers, from pre-school children to working professionals.

Over time Gyan Darshan grew into a bouquet of channels. The bouquet includes channels managed by IGNOU along with Eklavya, focused on vocational and technical education with content from IIT Delhi, and Vyas, dedicated to higher education with contributions from the University Grants Commission. The same source notes that Gyan Darshan broadcasts in roughly 13 regional languages, reflecting the National Education Policy 2020’s emphasis on learning in regional languages.

Gyan Vani: education over FM radio 🔗

Radio was given an educational role too. Gyan Vani was set up after a frequency for educational broadcasting was allotted in around 40 cities, with IGNOU signing a memorandum of understanding with Prasar Bharati to operate the FM stations. Launched in 2001, the network used 10 KW FM transmitters to extend educational programming. The term itself combines “Gyan,” meaning knowledge, with “Vani,” meaning voice or aerial broadcasting.

What makes Gyan Vani distinctive is its local character. Each Gyan Vani station covers a radius of about 60 kilometres around a city, with programmes contributed by educational institutions, NGOs and national bodies like IGNOU, NCERT, UGC and the IITs. This local focus lets each station address the educational and developmental needs of its own region. IGNOU also runs Gyandhara, an internet audio counselling service through which learners anywhere can listen to live discussions and interact with teachers by phone, email or chat.

Why these channels matter for distance learning 🔗

For an open university, broadcasting solves a basic problem: how to teach students who never sit in a physical classroom. A learner in a remote district can watch a recorded lecture, listen to a counselling session, or follow a curriculum-based programme without travelling. These channels also act as organised information sources because their content is pooled from credible institutions and structured around syllabi, making them reliable rather than random. This combination of authority and reach is exactly what distinguishes a good information source.

Regional and national news channels 🔗

Beyond formal education, broadcasting stations are central to how people stay informed about current events. News broadcasting connects citizens to government decisions, local developments and world events, and it does so across linguistic and regional lines.

Public broadcasting and the news 🔗

The public broadcaster runs its own news services. AIR News and DD News are the premier news units of Prasar Bharati, providing news services across the country. For decades Doordarshan held a near-monopoly on television news, which gave it enormous influence over what the public knew. The economic reforms of the 1990s broke this monopoly, as private television news channels multiplied and changed how news was produced and consumed. The result today is a crowded field of national and regional news channels competing for attention.

Regional channels and cultural preservation 🔗

One of the quieter but most valuable functions of broadcasting is preserving culture and language. All India Radio played a key role in preserving classical music, promoting it on its platform and founding the Akashvani Sangeet Sammelan in 1954. Regional channels carry folk traditions, local festivals, agricultural information and programmes in languages that might otherwise get little airtime. Doordarshan’s DD Kisan, for example, is widely watched for agricultural information.

Regional broadcasting matters because the country is linguistically diverse. A national channel cannot serve a farmer in one state and a fisherman in another with the same content. By broadcasting in local languages and reflecting local concerns, regional stations keep information relevant and keep cultural memory alive. This is similar to how a library maintains a special collection of local history and vernacular materials.

The future of broadcasting in the digital era 🔗

The biggest change facing broadcasting is the shift from scheduled programmes on radio and television to on-demand content streamed over the internet. This transition is reshaping both who controls information and how people receive it.

Educational broadcasting goes digital 🔗

Educational broadcasting has already moved online in important ways. SWAYAM Prabha is a group of DTH channels that broadcast high-quality educational content around the clock, with content from NPTEL, the IITs, UGC, CEC, IGNOU, NCERT and NIOS, while an online portal archives the telecast videos for access at any time. The model is clever: it uses both satellite television, which reaches homes without internet, and a web archive for those who are online. During the COVID-19 pandemic, when schools closed, Doordarshan and SWAYAM Prabha became alternative classrooms, reaching students who lacked reliable internet access. This showed that traditional broadcasting still has a role precisely where digital access fails.

The rise of streaming 🔗

For general audiences, however, the move to streaming is dramatic. The country crossed 600 million OTT users in 2025, around 41 percent of the population, while connected television usage grew sharply within a single year. The streaming audience reached 601.2 million users, with connected television viewership growing about 87 percent as smart TVs became more common. People increasingly choose what to watch and when, rather than following a fixed broadcast schedule.

This shift is putting real pressure on traditional television. Weekly television reach declined over recent years and active pay DTH subscribers fell, reflecting the move towards streaming services and internet-connected devices. Advertising money is following audiences to digital platforms, which weakens the financial base of conventional broadcasters.

Adapting rather than disappearing 🔗

Broadcasting is unlikely to vanish, but it is changing form. Prasar Bharati now reaches audiences through digital platforms and operates services such as the NewsOnAir app alongside its broadcast services. Public broadcasters are putting content online, running their own apps, and using satellite DTH to serve areas where streaming is not practical. Regional-language content, which now accounts for a large share of streaming viewership, shows that the demand for local and cultural programming has simply migrated to new platforms.

For information professionals, the lesson is that broadcasting stations remain important information sources even as the technology changes. What matters is the institution’s ability to produce credible, structured content and deliver it to people who need it, whether through a transmitter, a satellite, or an app.

What do you think? If streaming gives people unlimited choice over what to watch, does the public-service mission of broadcasting, to educate and inform everyone equally, become harder to fulfil? And in a future where most content is on-demand, what role should government-run educational channels play in reaching learners who are still offline?

References

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