Anna Community Radio (Anna CR) is the first community radio in India established in February 2004, by an educational institution taking the lead in service of the downtrodden in the local community.

The purpose of Anna CR is to uplift the local community residing near Anna University, Chennai, by creating awareness on health care, education, female literacy, self-employment, clean environment, etc. Anna CR programmes are produced by the community and for the community. The reach of our 50 Watts transmitter is within a radius of approximately 15 kms.

The programmes are broadcast from a small and elegant, completely digital tapeless multipurpose studio at 90.4MHz which start every day at 7 am and close at 6 pm, 11 hours a day (5 ½ hours of original programmes, and another 5 ½ hours of repeat) and this rigour is kept round the year. The timings suit the slum clearance tenement women who are our primary target listeners.

Anna CR has aired a number of programmes in the past seven years and has also produced programmes in the fields of education, literature, fine arts, philosophy, science, engineering, medicine, pollution control, etc. Eminent personalities, scholars and intellectuals have visited the studio and shared their knowledge on various themes for Anna CR.

Anna CR is a non-commercial radio; it offers a forum for public to participate and share their expertise / views with subjects related to community social awareness and development of society.

Anna CR was the first Community Radio, established in February 2004 by Anna University, Chennai, at its Educational MultimediaResearch Centre (EMMRC). It was inaugurated by the then Deputy Prime Minister Shri L.K. Advani. The Tamilnadu Chief MinisterMs. J. Jayalalithaa was a guest of honour. The function was presided over by the then Union Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting, Mr. Ravi Shankar Prasad.

The audio studio was inaugurated by former Vice-Chancellor of Anna University, Dr. E. Balagurusamy in the presence of Mr. Pradeep Kaul, former Director, CEC-UGC, New Delhi.

Anna University is located at the heart of Chennai city which is media saturated. But this part of the city has several slum clearance apartment tenements. The radio station is on the ground floor of the EMMRC building which is primarily meant as a higher educational media centre. The doors of Anna Community Radio are always open to the community members. The community people, particularly women, walk in to do programmes. Some of them are also trained in audio production and broadcasting. They themselves select the topic, prepare the script, find the resource persons and take an active part to give quality programmes. They even do the recording and editing on their own. A few media students of Anna University reach out to the community along with community volunteers. Community members form the backbone of our production team.

Off-air programmes are also done in the community spaces. These include AIDS awareness campaign, swine flu awareness campaign, medical camps, pollution control campaign, and campaign on nutritious food for pregnant women. Feedback is normally got by phone-in programmes and engaging the communities in off-air programmes. Anna CR strives to provide radio programmes that are innovative and reflective of the diverse voices of community. We provide music and information that is not covered by mainstream media. We strive to achieve perfection by involving the community for preparing the programmes, which are targeted to serve the very same community. Since the radio station functions as part of a UGC television production centre (EMMRC), production people with training in audio-visual production are readily available to train the radio staff and also to pitch in whenever there is a need.

The radio station was set up under the guidance of Dr. R. Sreedher, former Director of EMMRC, who himself is an eminent radio professional, and hence there was no need for a radio consultant from outside.