A Konkani radio programme at Planet FM 104.6, started by a team of enthusiastic young men has successfully completed one year of broadcast this month.
‘Susegad Danpar’ is broadcast every Saturday from 3:45 p.m. to 4:45 p.m. with the chats and songs in Konkani, the language that is spoken in the state of Goa and the coastal region of Karnataka down south to Mangalore and Kerala, in southwestern India.
The show has a track record of at least 250 hits for every programme on the Internet, which is a good number for a foreign language show in its first year.
The Indian Weekender had covered a story on the launch of the show in its January 24, 2017, issue earlier this year.
There were a few challenges for the show in the beginning which had to be overcome for smoothly running the show of which the first was to produce the show in its correct Konkani version.
It is important to note that Konkani official language of the state of Goa is a spoken language with no script of its own but uses a variety of scripts varying from region to region (Roman script in Goa, Devanagari in southern coastal Maharashtra and the Kannada script in Karnataka, particularly in Mangalore and South Kanara as also in Arabic and Malayalam scripts).
Hector de Souza, Baptist Lobo and Richard Miranda are the presenters of the show and are called the ‘Good Guys’ at the station.
The other challenge for the team was to design and structure the programme, find anchors and establish a good library of old and contemporary Konkani songs to fill the one-hour of the broadcasting slot.
After much discussion, the team decided to go for the live show, as it would be livelier, spontaneous and free-flowing.
The programming eventually settled down by trial and error, and today it is built around the Christian catechesis principle.
The one-hour programme is broken into four quarters – introduce the concept, expand and explain the concept, sharing experiences about it and round it up with a takeaway message.
“The show, more of a coffee table chat is interspersed with Konkani music making Saturday afternoons indeed, 'Susegad' – calm and peaceful,” Baptist Lobo, organiser of the show said.
The hosts have built a library of over thousand songs by now, and people have come forward to share their music, given the fact that it is a community-broadcasting platform. The show has garnered support and inspiration from its Konkani speaking community in Auckland.
The programming encourages the community members to come and talk on the radio about matters that interest them, about the Konkani culture, how to speak conversational Konkani and it provides a platform to its youth to showcase their talents.
The show in the New Year aims to consolidate its “number one” position of listenership by widening its programming to include more youth, with a blend of Konkani and Kiwi flavour.
ISSUE
Leave a Comment