An Auckland based Indian entrepreneur is set to launch a round-the-clock Hindi radio station on the Frequency Modulation (FM) band.
Satyan Prasad, currently employed as the General Manager of the Auckland based Enterprise Motor Group and his wife Roshila have established 5Tunz Communications Limited, which owns, operates and manages the new station Humm 106.2FM.
They claimed the Frequency will reach all listeners in the Auckland Region.
“This is a high band frequency, which will provide high quality sound and listeners will receive uninterrupted reception,” they said.
Neither of them have had previous knowledge or experience in the broadcasting industry but they have hired Rajesh Maharaj and Shyam Karan, two experts in the respective areas of programming and technology to set up and operate the new radio station.
Mr Prasad said a state-of-the-art studio with modern facilities is getting ready at 16 Taylors Road in Morningside in Central Auckland and that a complement of 15 staff including full-time and part-time programme presenters will be in place shortly to attend to various tasks.
“Most of them are young recruits to bring freshness into broadcasting. They are being trained in different areas of the industry to provide professional service.
“This will be a 24-hour radio station catering to those who speak and understand Hindi and ‘Hinglish.’ We are keen to ensure that the presenters speak the language properly without slangs to match the high quality technology,” Mr Prasad said.
He said he had invested more than $2 million for the initial set up.
According to Mr Prasad, the new station will provide the ‘FM experience’ to Auckland listeners.
“We also hope that Humm will bring ‘an alternative’ to the mainstream stations that line-up the FM dials in Auckland,” he said.
As well as entertainment, the station plans to have news updates and talkback.
The new station is expected to go on air in March along with a live website.
According to Igor Zukina, Director of Engineering at the AVC Group, with expertise in complex design of IP based broadcasting facilities and broadcast transmission solutions and support, high band frequencies would have to combat the problem of not being able to reach cars imported from Japan, since their standard radio receivers do not go beyond 90 FM. There is no elegant and technically adequate solution to modify Japanese radios.
“Low power FM broadcasters (such as Radio Sur, Radio Masti and Radio Spice) also have similar problems of reach,” he said.
