Fans and RJs of the popular satellite radio channel lament its passing.
When Shanti Rajesh, a 34-year-old Chennai-based homemaker, woke up on January 1 after celebrating New Year’s Eve with her family and friends, it promised to be just another regular day. She made herself some filter coffee, glanced through the newspapers and switched on the radio. Then, all of a sudden, it hit her. Like many other fans all over the world, she had forgotten that her favourite source of music, WorldSpace, was now a thing of the past.
While the company’s website continues to state “This action is an outgrowth of the financial difficulties facing… WorldSpace, Inc, which has been under bankruptcy protection since October 2008”, many of its ardent fans find it hard to believe that this is indeed true. “The music is dead,” Rajesh admits, while admitting that out of habit she switches on her BPL receiver even now. “I feel a vacuum. It’s been a huge personal loss,” she says. And in an effort to cope, Rajesh recently launched Keep WorldSpace India Alive, a webpage on the popular networking site Facebook. “I started the page to connect with other fans who felt the same way,” she says. The webpage clocked 900 members within a week of its launch; clear evidence that there’s a WorldSpace community out there. Its ironic, that in terms of numbers too, the satellite radio had a great run and credited India for 95 per cent of its overall business.
How did WorldSpace become such a big deal especially at a time when there are several choices available? From iPods to legal downloading of music (getting easier by the day), what set WorldSpace radio apart and why are fans mourning its loss?
Kolkata-based Bhawna Rohatgi, who also put up a Facebook status the day WorldSpace announced its closure, says: “I think we took it for granted. I loved the look on my three-year-old daughter’s face as she intently listened to Charlie Rich’s “A Very Special Love Song”. Tell me, which FM channel would play this mid-70s country hit?” She adds nostalgically: “My husband and I would stop arguing simply by tuning in to Maestro (the channel that aired Western classical music). We would discuss Bach instead,” she smiles.
Many feel that the connection with WorldSpace went beyond the music. “WorldSpace offered something for everyone. It was the centre of my universe,” says Anupam Dasgupta, general manager at the spa resort The Ananda In The Himalayas, adding that his home in the hills resonated with the strains of late Ustad Bismillah Khan’s shehnai on Radio Gandharva in the early morning hours. What this particular channel, for instance, also carried were in-depth interviews with artistes; something not available elsewhere. “I often find that FM channels air a lot of irrelevant stuff. It’s not for serious listeners,” says Pooja Sharma, a 30-plus software professional based in Delhi. Her brother gifted her a WorldSpace radio subscription six years ago with his first salary, and she has been addicted to it since then. And though she has temporarily switched to radio on the Internet, poor connectivity and bad audio often ruins the experience. “The fact that we could have quality music minute after minute, hour after hour was amazing,” she says, adding that though she found the music repetitive, the in-depth interviews on many channels and fewer commercial breaks, made WorldSpace worth it. Can’t she burn CDs or, for that matter, or use her iPod Nano instead? “Yes, but what WorldSpace offered was richer, more unique. The education in music that WorldSpace offered was limitless, and I’d never be able to get that on my iPod or any CD,” she says. For Sharma, who liked listening to jazz, Blues and English classics, WorldSpace was “a constant companion”.
If Sharma is still coming to terms with the loss, for many like Supriya Jambunathan and Ravi Khanolkar, who were radio jockeys (RJs) for some of the WorldSpace radio channels, the closure came as a rude shock. “It happened all of a sudden and frankly we had no clue that it was all over,” says 24-year-old Jambunathan who aired Chai Pani, a daily show on Radio Jhankaar. A typical routine for Jambunathan as an RJ working in WorldSpace Radio’s Bangalore office included “thoroughly researching for songs, coordinating with stations in Mumbai for regional content and, keeping in touch with record labels too”. Having been associated with WorldSpace for close to five years (“I joined the channel immediately after graduation, and in that sense WorldSpace and I grew up together”), Jambunathan doesn’t go to office any longer. “I’m busy with my four-month-old baby,” she pauses and adds softly, “the office has shut down anyway.”
Like Jambunathan, Khanolkar too is feeling the pinch. He was associated with the satellite radio channel for almost five years as an RJ. “I’d developed a passion for my shows and I can completely understand how my listeners feel,” he says his voice choked with emotion. Both Jambunathan and Khanolkar agree that being associated with WorldSpace was like being part of an extended family . “I’ve had people sending me wedding invitations, birthday invites, DVDs and gifts,” says Jambunathan. Khanolkar, besides hosting shows on jazz, R&B and classic rock.
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So what’s next for the many Indian fans of WorldSpace? Employees of the satellite radio channel had, in fact, started a signature campaign recently to plead with the parent company to somehow resume services in India. Rajesh, on her part, has also written to the authorities but hasn’t received an acknowledgment.
Not surprisingly, musicians and artistes too are lamenting the death of WorldSpace Radio. Ironically, only recently Ustad Amjad Ali Khan had said that this was the only radio channel that highlighted the work of Indian classical artistes. “There’s not a single radio channel that serves the interest of ardent classical music fans,” says Geetika Malwani, another listener from Kochi, adding that she is “wondering where the daily dose of music will now come from.”
Malwani, like many other fans, knows that for now the music, alas, has died.
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The DTH service from Bharti Airtel announced recently that it would be replacing the10 WorldSpace Satellite Radio channels on its DTH platform with 10 All India Radio channels, including FM Gold, FM Rainbow, AIR Punjabi, FM Rainbow-Bangalore, AIR Tamil, AIR Ragam, AIR Telugu, AIR Bengali, AIR Gujarati and AIR Urdu. The offer, however, is open only to Airtel DTH TV customers. Entry-level Airtel digital TV packs cost Rs 2,499 for one-time installation charge and six-month free subscription. Extras like selective channels start from Rs 99, and all channels are available for a maximum of Rs 424 per month. There is no extra cost for the radio channels offered by Airtel DTH. |
