BECIL assures broadcast will be restored on an interim setup soon, leaving broadcasters puzzled
Four private FM radio stations in Delhi – Hit FM, Oye FM, Big FM and Radio One went off air from Friday evening following a violent storm that uprooted their transmission tower.
This 148 meter tower provided by Government body – Broadcast Engineering Consultants India Ltd. (BECIL) located in Kingsway Camp, New Delhi came crashing down much to the surprise of the radio operators. As one operator states, “The tower was huge and none of the players can believe that it came crumbling down due to storm. It has to be faulty design because normally these towers can withstand wind speed of 180 km/hour and storm last week was at 114 km/hour. Clearly, the infrastructure wasn’t well equipped and we have to incur losses for it.”
Investigation has already begun and it would take some time till the actual cause of the accident is identified. Sound Box spoke to Abhay Gupta, DGM, BECIL, who states, “We have appointed a committee for investigating the matter and are awaiting the findings to know the reason. It is difficult to say anything in certainty till then. As far as the broadcasts are concerned, they will go operational in a day or two with the interim setup. Restoring the original tower will take lot time as investigation is on. The tower belongs to the Ministry and we have written in to them and are waiting to hear from them on the next move.”
The FM players in the meanwhile have already started work on the interim tower to begin broadcast. They estimate atleast a year for the damaged tower to be restored as cables, transmitters and antenna required, need to be imported. Adds another broadcaster, “BECIL has offered interim setup by Technomedia Solutions to mount a 100 meter tower. This setup will take another 12 to 15 days and will allow us to mount antennas and start broadcast immediately.” Already bearing loss of business in the past three days, the FM players have to endure an additional cost of setting up the interim tower.
This Common Transmission Infrastructure (CTI) was rented and shared by Phase II radio players including Fever FM, who moved to an alternate tower after the incident. Fever FM had maintained a tower for a while and it came handy with this mishap. Red FM and Radio City, radio players from Phase I privatization of radio, had mounted their antenna on another CTI and escaped the occurrence.
Radio One is working on ‘emergency limited terrestrial services’ that cover 30 Km radius by installing a small tower on top its building in Noida. Their feeds can also be streamed online on Andriod, blackberry and iOS devices.
While stations are pushing to get back on air at the earliest, talks about BECIL’s inefficiency are also doing the rounds. As one radio executive says, “Why should AIR control private radio infrastructure? Their efficiency and efficacy is always a question and this tower crashing down is the best example.”
To which BECIL’s Gupta says, “Radio operators will blame as they are losing money. But the storm that day was massive and has caused loss of many things in Delhi.”
