A Short History of Radio With an Inside Focus on Mobile Radio Winter 2003-2004 If success has many fathers, then radio. Broadcast uses of the radio spectrum. Radio programme production a manual for training. Broadcasting plays an important part in the. Should be kept as an ideas and notes file-over the years.

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Introduction to Broadcasting – MCM 411 VU ©Copyright Virtual University of Pakistan 30 LESSON 14 RADIO DRAMA I Drama in literature is as old as most other story-telling forms like novels and short stories are; when Shakespeare wrote Romeo and Juliet and enthralled the audience to pave the way for classical writings in this form, he was not the pioneer of this genre of literature. Drama; writing story in dialogue form, was already existing, though little known.

Then came others, felt the liveliness and vibrancy in this form of communication and worked to further this part of literature. One prime reason for the popularity of stage has always been the dramas expressed with all vitality and ferocity through characters some times dominating and at others subduing. When radio was introduced in the start of last century, stage dramas had already come to age and were one top entertainment for the common people. Radio dramas actually picked the thread from theaters and gave it a dimension never imagined even by the top playwrights before. In the subcontinent, the theaters echoed plays of Agha Hashar kashmiri who had a special knack in dialogue writing. Syed Imtiaz Ali Taj, and Krishn Chandr were not much behind.

In fact there were a number of writers engaged in drama writing. It immediately drew attention when radio came into being. Apart from music and announcements/ news, radio stations started making dramas to build up their audience. But radio inherited drama from stage and for years it was a replica of stage dramas, which was heard on radios. We must see how the stage drama was before the broadcasting mode of communication.

Stage Dramas It was 1840 when a merchant F Cowasjee in Bombay desired to open a theatre. He was allowed to do so in 1846 when along with him Jamshedjee and jeejabhoy founded subcontinent’s first theatre named Grand Road Theatre.

For long it staged English plays. In 1853 Parsee Natak Mandli came into being and got popularity for staging over a 1000 shows of a play, uttejak mandli, a satire, comic and reflection on various aspects of social life.

It also worked as a breakthrough to bring the drama to middle classes. Dadabhai Sorabji Patel staged a musical urdu play early last century - Benazir babre munir. But Indrasabah by Agha Hasan Amanat Ali at the darbar of oudh Lacnow in 1885 was a landmark success already. From translations stage brought drama to vernacular- hindi, urdu, Bengali and Gujarati. It flourished more in Bombay.

Agha hashr Kashmir’s Kashmir ki kali and yahudi ki larki, and then rustom o suhraab were top ranking stage performances. Performers usually spoke loudly to enable back-seaters to listen dialogues. Top playwrights and directors included premchand, raam babu saksena, saadat hasan minto, krishn chandr, ahmed shah bokhari and N.M.

The dialogues were interwoven with songs, verses, and dances. Early Radio Dramas The same set off playwright also wrote plays for radio when it came to India in 1926. First in Bombay and then in Lahore, Peshawar, Delhi and after partition to Karachi, Rawalpindi and Hyderabad. Early days radio dramas were loud and more like stage plays. Then came people like Rafi Peerzada and Z A Bokhari who worked day in and day out to convert stage plays look radio plays.

Introduction to Broadcasting – MCM 411 VU ©Copyright Virtual University of Pakistan 31 New writing techniques and dialogue delivery with immense voice control in speech were introduced. By the time second generation of writers came Agha Nasir, Kamal Ahmed Rizvi, Ashfaaq Ahmed, radio had come to age in Pakistan. Hamid mian kay haan, and legend Talqeen Shah reverberated in the airs of subcontinent not for weeks or months but decades. In between so much experiments were carried out on dramas that it has become a story in itself.

Ethics No immoral dialogue. No humiliation of any segment of society. No blasphemous stories even not against government policies. But to create harmony and expose hypocrisy. Classification Very soon it was realized that every drama did not attract every one. In the meantime audience analysis approach was introduced and on the basis of research, listeners were categorized.

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Now there were separate dramas for children, military personals, farmers and rural people, urban aristocratic class and one as for general public. In another way radio dramas were classified as historical, translations, romantic (most listened category), war-time, and on social life mainly showing bad characters getting defeated.