New Delhi, Sept. 24. (UNI): The Direct-To-Home (DTH) service of the All India Radio (AIR) will be launched shortly, offering a total of 19 channels, including two on classical music and one on stock markets and other business activties.

The 24-hour DTH radio channel is a satellite service meant for listeners who own a TV set. It will be provided through the DTH platform of Prasar Bharti with uplinking facilities at Todarpur in the capital. It will cover not only the entire of India but also neighbouring countries.

"It is not a terrestrial broadcast service and DTH programmes cannot be tuned in the ordinary radio receiver sets," R K Sinha, AIR's Director of Programmes (PR), said today.

Sharma said the channel, to be launched "very shortly", would initially broadcast programmes on 19 channels in two phases. In the first phase, 10 channels will be activated while in the second, nine channels would be there, he pointed out.

The 10 channels in the first phase will broadcast programmes in Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi, Bangla, Telugu, Tamil, Kannada and Punjabi languages.

In addition, there will be a North-Eastern Service and Vividh Bharati Service, Mumbai.

The nine channels in the second phase will beam programmes in Urdu, Oriya, Malayalam, Assamese, Tribal languages of Jharkhand and Chattisgarh English Channel. The two classical music channels and one data channel will also be activated during this phase. He said the DTH service in various language channels would be available in every nook and corner of the country.

"The most significant aspect of DTH broadcast is its digital quality. In addition, the programming is planned in such a way that the repetition of the programmes is kept at minimum."

The AIR at present broadcasts programmes in 66 languages and dialects through the terrestrial network of 215 stations.

Terrestrial broadcasts have limitations of the coverage areas as these are dependent on the strength of transmitters. "But the uniqueness of DTH lies in its capacity of nationwide coverage."

Doordarshan's DTH service, the world's first free-to-air DTH, is also likely to be launched later this month or in the beginning of October.

"We have not fixed the precise date for the launch of DTH and the trial run of the service is being actively carried out", Prasar Bharati Chief Executive Officer, K S Sarma, had recently said.

However, highly-placed sources in Doordarshan said the DTH service, which will initially offer a bouquet of 30 TV and 10 radio channels, would be formally launched after the return of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh from the US later this month.

Doordarshan's DTH will be the first service in the world which would be absolutely free. "There is no activation fee, recurring charges or any hidden costs to receive the service and it is cheaper than any private DTH service," Sarma had said.