Anna Community Radio (Anna CR) is the first community radio in India, established in February 2004, by an educational institution taking the lead in the service of the downtrodden in the local community. The purpose of Anna CR is to uplift the local community residing near Anna University, Chennai, by creating awareness on healthcare, education, female literacy, self-employment, clean environment, etc. Anna CR programmes are produced by the community and for the community. The reach of our 50 Watts transmitter is within a radius of up to 15 km.
The programmes are broadcast from a small and elegant, completely digital tapeless multipurpose studio at 90.4 MHz. Broadcast starts everyday at 9 AM and closes at 9 PM, a total of 12 hours a day (6 hours of original programmes and 6 hours of repeat). The timings suit the slum clearance tenement women who are our primary target listeners.
Anna CR has aired a number of programmes in the past sixteen years and has also produced programmes in the fields of education, folk literature, fine arts, philosophy, science, engineering, medicine, pollution control, etc. Eminent personalities, scholars and intellectuals have visited the studio and shared their knowledge on various themes for Anna CR. Anna CR is a non-commercial radio; it offers a forum for the public to participate and share their expertise / views with subjects related to community social awareness and development of society.
Anna CR was inaugurated by the then Deputy Prime Minister, Mr. L.K. Advani. The then Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, Ms. J. Jayalalithaa, was a guest of honour. The function was presided over by the then Union Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting, Mr. Ravi Shankar Prasad. The radio station was set up under the guidance of Dr. R. Sreedher, then Head of the Department of Media Sciences, who himself is an eminent radio professional.
Anna University is located in the heart of Chennai city which is media saturated. But this part of the city has several slum clearance apartment tenements. The radio station is on the ground floor of the Department of Media Sciences building. The doors of Anna Community Radio are always open to the community members. The community people, particularly women, walk in to do programmes. Some of them are also trained in audio production and broadcasting. They themselves select the topic, prepare the script, find the resource persons, and take an active part to give quality programmes. They even do the recording and editing on their own. Media students of Anna University reach out to the community along with community volunteers. Community members form the backbone of our production team.
Off-air programmes are also done in the community spaces. These include AIDS awareness campaign, corona pandemic awareness campaign, swine flu awareness campaign, medical camps, pollution control campaign, disaster relief, and campaign on nutritious food for pregnant women. Feedback is normally got by phone-in programmes and by engaging the communities in off-air programmes. Anna CR strives to provide radio programmes that are innovative and reflective of the diverse voices in the community. We provide music and information that is not covered by the mainstream media. We strive to achieve perfection by involving the community for preparing the programmes to serve the community.