AIR introduces Android app for news, YouTube channel for FM Gold

All India Radio, a division of the public sector broadcaster Prasar Bharati and one of the largest broadcasters worldwide, has finally decided to go mobile and social to reach out to the tech-savvy Generation Y. Realising the growing popularity of social media and mobile apps, and perhaps to do some damage control to revive its dwindling public rating, AIR has come up with an Android app for its news service, live internet streaming of its Urdu service and an YouTube channel for its music service FM Gold.

The easy-to-use news service app called All India Radio News enables users to read the bulletins or you can also listen to those. One can browse through the categories such as headline, national, international, business, sports to track current news or the bulletins from the day before. The audio news service is available in all languages in which bulletins are broadcast – Hindi, Bengali, Marathi, Punjabi, Nepali, Assamese, Malayalam and more. Some other programmes like Spotlight, Market Mantra, Sports Scan and Samayiki are also available here.

Although the app has not seen many downloads yet (500-plus since launch), going by the reviews, it has been appreciated a lot. Since private radio stations are not allowed to broadcast proper news bulletins yet in India, this app is sure to cater to a huge audience as AIR news is still popular among the masses.

Do check it out and share your reviews with us.

(Edited by Sanghamitra Mandal)