Nothing beats the wholesome Indian radio experience and the community building feature of it. For the Indian diaspora in the US who have fond memories of Indian radio, the launch and journey of Shuddh Desi Radio-AapkaApna Radio (your radio) has been a blessing. Started by two immigrants Shalini Dixit and Andy Sathe in the year 2018 in Nashville with a listenership of 7000, Shuddh Desi Radio has almost 350k+ listeners today.
In just two years Shuddh Desi Radio has managed to establish itself as a popular radio channel among the diaspora as well as diversify its content in a bid to appease the growing listener-base. The initial programs consisted of Bollywood music programs and gradually they branched out to Finance, Health and Wellness, Education and Culture. There are multiple regional languages shows too, in Telugu, Tamil, Odia, Marathi, Bengali, Gujarati and Kannada. They were also invited to Howdy Modi event in Texas in 2019 to represent Indian media from south-east USA region and also to the Miss World Beauty Pageant, to cover it live.
Even during the trying times of the COVID-19 lockdown Shuddh Desi Radio has managed to give back to the community. People came together on Shuddh Desi Radio and shared their stories to get through the tough time. And as a part of curating positive shows during the lockdown, a live interview show was started on their Facebook page and they have had guests like AnupamKher, Shankar Mahadevan, Mahabharata Krishna and NitishBharadwaj. They also organized an online musical concert called ‘Revival’ which was a fund-raising event for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. And in July a virtual Global Talent Competition (GMI 2.0) was conducted to raise funds for music scholarships and other donations. Both of these events saw participants/contestants from around the world. Terence Lewis Performance Training institute and Shankar Mahadevan Academy have sponsored free classes to winners of the GMI 2.0 in Voice, Instruments and Dance categories. With a diverse set of programs that cater to the objective of community strengthening, Shuddh Desi Radio has been successful in bringing the true essence of Indian radio to the US.
