The Greater London Council’s Initiatives: A Precursor of British Asian Radio Broadcasting

Abstract

By the mid-1970s, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and the Independent Local Radio (ILR) sector started catering to the local Asian migrant listener community in England, by producing Asian radio programming output in English and in Asian languages such as Hindi and Urdu. In the 1980s, the Greater London Council (GLC) came up with its own initiatives to cater to London’s Asian migrant community. This article describes GLC’s initiatives through its Community Radio Unit, which encouraged independent British Asian radio broadcasting in England.

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Gloria Khamkar

Gloria Khamkar is an academic and media researcher, with special interest in the area of ‘Ethnic Community Radio’, ‘Participatory Media’, and ‘Media usage amongst migrant societies’. She has completed a PhD on ‘The Evolution of British Asian Radio in England: 1960 - 2004’ at Bournemouth University, UK. Her doctoral thesis explores why and how the Asian radio broadcasting started in England; it also examines the aspects of Asian immigration, race relations and integration. Looking ahead, she is keen to explore the media usage by the immigrant communities as well as delve into existence and development of Community Radio outside of the UK, especially in Europe and India.