All India Radio (AIR) has launched a non-conventional audio broadcast channel through Internet and ‘free dish’ called RAAGAM.
The channel is presently available as an app on the mobile over Android, iOS and Windows platforms. According to a financial daily, the Channel will also be beamed through one of Digital Terrestrial Channel -DTT of Doordarshan.
The RAAGAM app streams AIR channels like AIR Urdu, Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati, Vividh Bharati, FM Gold, FM Rainbow. It has already recorded 100, 000 downloads on its Android platform.
The channel will have specific time bands for archival assets, senior living legends, budding and upcoming artists, auditioned and approved by AIR. It will also have programmes on classical music, official AIR News along with special news based programs and audio-based India’s regional news bulletins.
Pros
- Users have various AIR channels to choose from and can opt for whichever channel they want to listen to.
- The app can stream news in 30 different languages apart from Hindi, English and Urdu.
- The app delivers a fairly good quality of sound along with good user interface.
Cons
- The app cannot be run in the background, which means that neither the screes can be switched nor any other application be played alongside.
- The app does nt allow users to record a program or pause it as per their choice. The volume controls also do not work aptly.
- Working on a 2G connection is fairly slow. The app takes time to stream even in the 3G connection.
- The app even lacks notification bar or lockscreen controls
