Even as public broadcaster Prasar Bharati announced its decision to close down All India Radio ’s national channel and its regional training academies in five cities as part of “cost-cutting measures”, AIR old-timers recalled the appeal and reach of India’s first all-night radio channel in a pre-internet, pre-FM era.

Launched in 1988 in Hindi, Urdu and English, it broadcast from 6.50pm to 6.50am. “It was primarily intended for students and those who worked night shifts,” says Rajni S K Dutta, a Hindi presenter who made the channel’s first-ever announcement on May 18, 1988.

Kakoli Banerjee, an English presenter who has worked with the national channel since the late ’80s, often got letters from engineering students and aspiring MBAs who tuned in while burning the midnight oil . “At that time, all other channels would stop broadcasting by midnight. We had a variety of programmes for people who wanted to stay awake,” Banerjee says. “But it also meant we had to do graveyard shifts.”

Staff working for the Urdu channel was no stranger to late nights either. They ran a special show called ‘ Sehar Gahi’, which would be aired at 3am for 30 days during the month of Ramzan. It aired religious content from both the Quran and the Gita, with the objective of weaning Indian listeners away from a similar programme on Radio Pakistan. “That programme used to contain anti-India messages,” says Dr Shujaat Rizvi, retired station director, AIR. “In the first month, we got 20,000 letters from listeners. The programme is still running, but will now obviously end.

