This historic transformation eventually paved the way for the entry of new actors in the media landscape in Nepal, including non-state players in the radio sector in the Frequency Modulation (FM) band.[break]
The first license to an independent FM radio station in Nepal was issued in May 1997. That certification was given to Radio Sagarmatha 102.4 in Kathmandu, owned and operated by the non-governmental organization (NGO), Nepal Forum of Environmental Journalists (NEFEJ).
Since that moment of recognition, that a radio station could be operated by a non-state owned entity, there has been a phenomenal growth in the independent radio sector in Nepal.
This growth has taken place in two phases, the first of which ended in April 2006. During the first nine-year phase (May 1997-April 2006), the growth in the number of radio stations was limited by the slow process adopted by various governments with respect to the issuance of licenses. By April 2006, only 56 independent radio stations had been issued permits, and some 50 of them had gone on air in more than 20 of the 75 districts of the country.
The new government that came to power following the successful second People’s Movement of April 2006 processed the applications for radio licenses at a quicker pace, thus initiating a second phase of relatively fast-paced growth in the FM radio sector in Nepal. During the calendar year 2063 BS (mid-April 2006 to mid-April 2007), 140 radio stations were given licenses. By December 2007, licenses had been issued to radio transmitters which were to be located in more than 70 districts. By late July 2008, a total of 290 licenses had been issued, and 176 separate radio transmitters had gone on air from 153 distinct radio broadcasting entities.
According to the most comprehensive website on radio broadcasting in Nepal, nepalradio.org, by August 2009, the number of licensees and operational radio stations had gone up to 323 and 186 respectively. The Ministry of Information and Communication’s website says that by the end of April 2010, 379 licenses had been issued, and 231 radio stations were on air.
As has been oft noted, the radio licensees include for-profit companies, not-for-profit non-governmental organizations, cooperatives, local governments, and educational institutions. This plural and dispersed structure of the FM radio landscape has been made possible by a legislative framework that recognized the need for plurality in the radio landscape in Nepal, and a financially hybrid environment for radio.
Given this tremendous growth of independent radio – the like of which no other South Asian country has seen – the following question arises almost naturally: what kind of access do Nepali listeners have to independent radio?
Listener access
In fall 2005, when only about 50 FM radio stations had gone on air, promoter par excellence of community radio in Nepal, Raghu Mainali, estimated that about 65% of Nepal’s population was receiving FM radio signals. This number was calculated by adding up the number of individuals living in the primary target broadcasting areas of the 50 stations.
The Broadcast Audience Survey of 2006-2007, done by Equal Access Nepal, reconfirmed this figure, and suggested that it could be as high as 75% if the capacity of the highly sensitive radio receivers to catch the lowest signal levels was taken into consideration.
Although no fresh calculations or surveys have been published for the radio signal landscape, it would be safe to assume that at least 75%, if not 80%, of Nepal’s population now has access to FM radio broadcasts. This assumption seems logical given that the number of radios on air has increased more than four times since fall 2005. If the total population of Nepal is around 28 million, then this means 21-22.4 million Nepalis can potentially be reached by at least one or more FM radios.
Given the uneven spread of the FM radios, the number of stations that any individual has access to depends upon where she is located. In the Kathmandu Valley, a listener has access to about 30 stations that broadcast from various locations within the Valley. Listeners in Pokhara can access at least 11 stations. In the central Tarai belt, between the cities of Bhairahawa and Butwal, listeners can receive signals from at least 17 FM stations.
In general, listeners in the central, eastern, and western regions of the country have access to more FM broadcasts than listeners in the mid-western and far-western regions. Due to the haphazard ways in which frequencies have been assigned, reception quality has been compromised in many parts of the country, a topic that has been analyzed at length by expert Pawan Prakash Upreti in an article published in 2008.
Beyond the issue of the physical access to FM signals, there are other relevant themes related to access to FM radios. In a country where about half of the population is not literate, the access of the print media is immediately limited to the half who can read. Radio has a distinct advantage because its listeners do not have to be literate. Since various FM radios are broadcasting programs in languages spoken by different ethnic and caste groups, even those who cannot understand Nepali have begun to have access to FM radio contents in other languages in different parts of Nepal.
This is true for speakers of some 20 plus languages, including Rajbanshi, Bantawa Rai, Santhal, Jhagad, Chepang, Newari, Tamang, Maithali, Gurung, Magar, Bhojpuri, Rana Tharu, Purbeli Tharu, Dangora Tharu, Avadhi, Kham Magar, Limbu, and Doteli. As the FM radios spread further into rural areas, broadcasts in other remaining languages of Nepal are very likely.
In addition the significant size of culturally-migrant audiences in different parts of Nepal will also enjoy programs in their mother-tongues in their adopted cities. The best example of the latter phenomenon is Maithili-language programs that have been broadcast by several FM radio stations in Kathmandu. This became possible in large part because of the pioneering efforts of radio presenter Dhirendra Premarsi. It is estimated that in the Kathmandu Valley, there are about 300,000 individuals who speak Maithili and perhaps as many more who understand it.
According to the famous columnist CK Lal, the purchasing power capacity of the Maithili-speaking Kathmandu residents is greater than those of the larger group still living in the original Maithili speaking areas of the eastern Nepal tarai. Hence it is no surprise that once the radio stations overcame their initial inhibition as described by Premarsi in a 2008 article, they quickly realized that broadcasting Maithili-language programs in Kathmandu FMs also made good commercial sense.
In the same decade of FM radio growth, Nepal has imported hundreds of thousands of cheap Chinese battery-operated radios that can be bought for 50-500 Nepali Rupees. These radios are being sold even in rural markets. When a new FM station goes on air in parts of the country not previously served by FM radios, newspaper reports have suggested that shopkeepers have quickly sold hundreds of radios to their customers.
In 2007, a campaign to distribute radios to households that cannot even afford cheap receivers was started by senior radio journalist Bhairab Risal. In collaboration with community radios located in Makwanpur, Dhading, Chitwan, Nawalparasi, and Palpa districts, more than 1,200 radios were distributed to members of Chepang, Darai, Bote, Majhi, and Kumal communities.
This initiative was later followed by the Kathmandu-based radio program production organization Antenna Foundation which distributed over 5,000 radios as part of its project on mobile radio demonstrations. We can confidently assume that in the 10-year period between 1997 and 2007, more Nepali families came to own radio receivers than was the case in any previous decade since Nepalis started buying radios in the late 1920s.
The 2006-07 survey done by Equal Access Nepal found that 82% of Nepali households have radios and about 76% have radios with FM band. The same survey has suggested that about 95% of Nepalis have FM radios in their neighborhood and about 44% of the households have radios that cost less than Rs 500.
Some of the independent radios have done surveys of their own to find out some details of radio ownership and access in their primary broadcast areas. The baseline audience survey done by Radio Madanpokhara in 2004 amongst 690 families in the Tansen municipality and 15 Village Development Committees of Palpa district revealed that while almost 87% of the respondents owned a radio set, 77% had a set that could receive FM signals. While 85% of the families in the city of Tansen had FM radios, the corresponding number was 74.5% for the villages.
As reported by radio scholar Arjun Banjade in a 2006 article in The Journal of Development Communication, that survey also revealed interesting differences amongst various caste and ethnic groups in terms of FM radio ownership. Almost 90% of the Brahmin and Newar families owned such radios whereas the corresponding numbers for Chhetris, Magars and ‘Lower’ Castes were 73.8, 73.7 and 60.7% respectively.
Amongst Magars, 94.4% owned FM radio sets in the city whereas the corresponding number was 72.4% for the villages. More than 91% of those surveyed who had a FM radio set reported listening to Radio Madanpokhara. These data indicate very important differences regarding FM radio ownership between urban and rural residents, as well as between and across caste and ethnic groups. The situation could be somewhat different now, given that six years have passed since that survey was done.
The availability of cheap radio sets, the spread of FM radio coverage to about 75-80% of the country’s population, and contents in at least a dozen and half languages mean than radio has become the most accessible mass medium for the citizens of Nepal. Radio contents have become a relatively cheap resource with which Nepalis can think about issues that concern their lives and the life of the nation at large.
Onta is co-editor of several books on the history of radio in Nepal, including “Swatantra Radioko Ek Dashak” published in 2008 by Martin Chautari.
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