THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Officials at the top of Prasar Bharati has come up with some tricks to cheat the Malayali listeners.

Union Minister V Muraleedharan on Thursday intervened after 'Kerala Kaumudi' pointed out the frustration and protest of the listeners over the stoppage of Ananthapuri FM and the renaming it as 'Vividh Bharati Malayalam' which is filled with Hindi programs. Muraleedharan met L Murugan, Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting and requested him to rename Ananthapuri FM and bring back Malayalam programs. He also gave a petition.

With this, the officials who tried to kill off Ananthapuri FM came up with a trick. From yesterday, instead of Vividh Bharati Malayalam, the presentation was 'This is Ananthapuri Vividh Bharati Malayalam'. They just added the word Ananthapuri just for namesake. When Ananthapuri FM was started, it was called 'Ananthapuri FM 101.9'.

The inclusion of Hindi programs has not changed. During the prime time, that is 9 am to 10 am, the programs are in Hindi.

Revenue dropped 30 percent

As soon as the name Ananthapuri was changed, All India Radio's revenue dropped sharply. Only if there are people who listen to Hindi programs, they will get the advertisement.

When the channel functioned as Ananthapuri FM, it earned Rs 10 lakh from ads in December 2021

After the name change, this dropped to Rs 7 lakh in January

Ananthapuri FM has an advertising revenue of Rs 1.25 crore in 2019-20

After the Covid outbreak, it received Rs 80 lakh in 2020-21.

It received Rs 67 lakh till January 2021-22