return of the radio?

there was a recent news item that listening to the radio [or was it music too?] while driving was a punishable in offence in mumbai.
the reason given was that it could be distracting and therefore dangerous.

set me thinking..
for me, radio has been very special from childhood.
i needed a background ambience - which in those times was best provided by the radio - in the pre i-pod days! - to be able to effectively study or concentrate.
that got me into the hobby of short wave listening and DXing etc later.

then, there was the near death of the radio - with TV taking prime time from the viewers.

with the entry of FM radio and community radio stations in india, radio has been seeing a revival.
while on the one hand, these are commercial ventures and are slowly degenerating into a me-too format - with the main focus being on getting more advertising revenues and targetting the same audience with a lot of flocal flavour in every city, i find some stations trying a different formula.

in bangalore, the government channel - amruthavarshini - has been dishing out - for limited hours every day - good classical music, both hindustani and carnatic.
the AIR rainbow, has a very good collection of songs - indian and western - but need more forceful RJs.

bangalore also has radio indigo, that is the only private station that still plays only western / english music.

in chennai, i found chennai live being more of a mixed bag - still not possibly equalling teh collection of the old madras-2 station!

in delhi, i recently heard the station called 'meow' - an exclusive women oriented channel.

it is good to see that the diversity in interests are beign recognized and that there are sufficient target audience for each of these segments that it makes it worthwhile to have some dedicated services to cater to their needs..

at one time, i used to collect radios - from each of my travel destinations. i stopped that a long time ago.
maybe it is time to revive that..