It all started when Radio Mirchi decided to start its operations in bangalore, with RJs speaking in kannada. Before that, there was only one private radio channel, Radio city. Other one was AkashavaNi, vaaNijya prasara kendra, which later on named itself as "RainBow". Rainbow used play kannada songs most times. RadioCity never played kannada songs, and anchoring used to be totally in english. Many of my friends used to prefer to listen to radio, just for the sake of thier english improvement. Only on sunday there was some time slot given for kannada songs, the program was named "CHOW CHOW BATH".
When Mirchi came to city, many showed interest in radio, most people got disappointed about only anchoring in kannada but no kannada songs. I had blogged regarding this in a great disappointment.(http://obbakannadiga.blogspot.com/2006/06/radio-mirchi-is-not-playing-kannada.html)
Later Radio One started its operations in bangalore. They chose to play 2 kannada for every 3 hindi songs. They too chose to anchor in kannada which seemed obvious since bangalorean welcomed the kannada anchoring. But disappointment for so little number of kannada songs continued for kannada music lovers.
Then came relience's BIG FM, they played 2 or 3 kannada + 1 hindi songs. They took many TV artists like sihi kahi chandru for anchoring, thier kannada was much more better than kanglish anchoring of Mirchi RJs. BIG became favorate of many. During this time a survey was conducted, which showed that BIG had number 1 listenership!!. Which was a major setback for 'english+hindi only' radios.
Then came "S FM" which took a big decision of playing "only kannada" songs!!. For this bangaloreans reaction was overwhelming. Most started opting for mobiles with FM while buying new mobiles. S.FM used to play melodious old plus new kannada songs as most RJs were TV anchors from U2(The 24 hours kannada music TV channel). They knew beats of kannadigas. To which songs kannadigas minds trgger to happy mood and to which not. In a short period of time, S FM raised to Number One radio channel of bangalore.
Few months later Mirchi chose to play more and more kannada songs. It started advertising it as "eega hechchaagi kannada"(now, more and more kannada). Check out that TV commercial. (http://youtube.com/watch?v=Dhf6iwFOXk4). Then all of a sudden S FM decided to play kannada+hindi songs like BIG FM. The reason behind this was something elso than appearant reason of people prefer to listen to hindi songs too. S FM is owned by SUN Network which is of TamilNadu as everyone knows. They wanted to play tamil songs too!!! Thanks to KRV(Karnataka Rakshana Vedike) who would take serious action against S FM if they had choosen to do so. So Sun NetWork imposed this "hindi songs also to be played" rule on S FM, even though S FM had raised to number one position only for it playing 'only kannada' songs 24 hours.
Then Mirchi took this as an apportunity and decided play 'only kannada' songs 24 hours!! And Soon mirchi raised to number one position. Till Now its doing great.
Until all this Radio City used play hindi+english songs only and anchoring in english. Few days back radio city came up with "sikkapaTTe kannada, swalpa hindi"(too much of kannada, a little hindi) strategy and now its doing well. Anchoring is in kanglish. Lot of kannada songs are being played in Radio City. People have liked it as usual. Kannada songs that are coming for recent movies are so good and so melodious. Anybody would fall in love with melodious kannada tunes that are coming now a days. Thanks to Mano Murthy, Gurukiran, V Harikrishna, Raghu Dixit and obviously Hamsalekha, and many more for giving those good, lovely, melodious music.
By the way, between all these developments, Radio One decided to stick to hindi songs. They play almost like 'only hindi' songs. Except some english songs after late night. anchoring more like 'only english' except few kannada words here and there, every now and then. More and more other channels are leaning towards pro-kannada attitude, radio one is showing more or less like anti-kannada attitude. Their idea is to devide the people here as kannadigas and non-kannadigas. For example when we look at the kind of thier programs like 'rajani saar, in bangalore' (to attract tamilians),.. 'sultan's school of speech'(targetting muslims) etc. They want non-kannadigas to be interested in their channel and want to feed them with hindi songs even though they are no way connected to hindi :D Categorising people as non-kannadigas based on thier mother tongue is totally bad idea. Kannadiga does not mean, the one with kannada as his mother toungue. Name kannada itself is derived from word kannaDu which means kar+naDu = land with black soil. So anybody living in karnaaDu is a kannaDiga. As many would be knowing that many kannada writers who call themselves proudly as kannadigas, had thier mother tongue different from kannada. Take for instance Da.Ra.Bendre, Sham.Bha.Jhoshi thier mother tongue was marathi.
Now a days all are in love with kannada songs alike. People of bangalore, be it tamilian, north indian, telugite, all like to listen to kannada songs. This all was made possible by one "mungaru maLe"... No surprise if said, it changed the whole face of kannada film industry.
