Feb 13 is celebrated as the world radio day, marked on the UN calendars like many other days. This gave us at TNS an opportunity to look at our own experience with radio, especially after the initiation of FM alongside the AM. This has obviously reinvigorated this nostalgic medium and expanded its scope -- this one is there for 24 hours a day and the voice is a lot clearer than before.

The FM journey began in the early 1990s and as of now we are talking of about 200 FM stations across the country. But this sprawling has come about at the cost of standards and radio is not associated any more with quality or trained voices or linguistic excellence that we had associated with the state’s Radio Pakistan.

Yet most people listen to radio one way or the other. And this is why it is important to make an assessment of what kind of impact is it leaving on the society. There must be monitoring, analysis and surveys conducted to judge this. But like the mass medium of television, the organisations do not have standards or impact in their list of priority.

Our Special Report today looks at the state of radio in Pakistan and, of course, the radio stars that are very much alive, bringing joy into people’s lives.