Earlier known as Radio Ceylon, South Asia's pioneering commercial broadcast station has created a friendship between people in India and Sri Lanka and promoted cultural contacts in ways that SAARC can only dream about and that has withstood Indo-Sri Lanka Accord and the more recent free trade agreement.

Anyone who heard Ameen Sayani on Binaca Geet Mala will know. Radio Ceylon took his Brazilian coffee voice and that of his even more gifted brother Hamid, the host of the Ovaltine Amateur Hour, into millions of Indian homes every week. AFS `Bobby' Taleyarkhan and Alyque Padamsee were the other two Indians who became household names in their country, thanks to Radio Ceylon.

Since then, a virtual invasion of India by TV has left only misty memories of Jimmy Bharucha's rich and friendly baritone and Greg Roszkowszki, who with his signature `Wakey, Wakey' was like an alarm clock for thousands across India.

But it seems even now many Indians have time for Radio Sri Lanka. While All India Radio deals with its existential angst, an estimated 18 million people in India still tune in to Radio Sri Lanka's overseas commerical shortwave broadcast which puts out over 100 hours of programmes weekly.

That's an audience almost as large as Sri Lanka's population and they are provided an unabashed fare of music, music and more music from the latest Tamil, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam and Telugu films.

But no one is complaining, the audience loves it, and Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation (SLBC), an autonomous government body that runs Radio Sri Lanka, and must generate its own revenue, is smiling all the way to the bank.

Traders from Tamil Nadu scramble to advertise on Colombo International Radio that weekly puts out nearly 55 hours of Tamil programmes and can be heard all over southern India, and even as far as Mumbai.

``There is such a demand for the commerical spots on our programmes, we have to keep finding ways of squeezing them all in. Every brand of soap and gingelly oil made in Tamil Nadu is advertised on our service,'' said Eric Fernando, director-general of SLBC.

According to SLBC marketing director NS Sivarajah, advertising from India alone nets the corporation nearly 6 million Sri Lankan rupees, with Andhra Pradesh providing the second highest advertisements after Tamil Nadu. Obviously, small time Indian entrepreneurs believe their money travels farther on Radio Sri Lanka than on regional services of AIR with their limited reach.

It's the sort of market that Sri Lanka's private broadcasters are itching to lay their hands on, but the government, which has been quite liberal with FM licences for domestic transmissions, is having none of that yet.

Sri Lanka Radio's commercial service dates back to 1950 when Radio Ceylon began sending out music-based programmes using a 100 kw transmitter installed during the Second World War by the South East Asia Command of the Allied forces.

In India, where western pop music over the radio was then unknown and music from Indian films was considered cheap and banned over AIR, the programmes were an instant hit. Mylvaganam, the famed Tamil presenter, discovered on a visit to Madras (Chennai) that the late MG Ramachandran (former TN chief minister) was his biggest fan.

In a belated concession, AIR also toned down its prudish stand, but it was no match for the programmes from Sri Lanka with its young and zestful presenters and a bottomless music library. The story goes that when Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay scaled Everest, they tuned in to a radio and the first thing they heard was Roszkowkszki's voice, bright and early on Radio Ceylon.

``Those days, no one would purchase a radio in India unless it could pick up Radio Ceylon,'' reminisced Bharucha, who joined the commercial service and hosted the radio's Binaca Hit Parade, a programme of western pop, from 1958 to 1972.

Though Sri Lanka Radio's overseas service is now a shadow of its former self and all the top broadcasters are either dead or have moved away, it's popularity is still evident in the 500 letters in various Indian languages that daily flood the office of SLBC, giving sorters nightmares of the pleasant sort.