Indiantelevision.com Team

(28 March 2007 6:00 pm)

MUMBAI: With two sessions devoted to radio content and music programming on radio, the medium certainly made its presence felt at Ficci Frames convention this year. The questions around 'segmentation' and 'differentiation' are growing louder. The radio industry which has so far either been defensive about it or brushed it aside calling it a nascent industry is also acknowledging that it may lose listeners and advertisers if it doesn't take notice.

The session was chaired by Indiantelevision.com CEO Anil Wanvari who provided a brief background of radio in India and around the world and the various ways in which it had impacted listeners. Later ENIL MD & CEO AP Parigi put things in perspective when he mentioned how they had to plead with the Frames convention a year ago to add a session on radio which had few speakers and even fewer audiences. "With 400 million addressable audiences by year end, no other medium would be able to beat radio in terms of sheer reach and penetration," he said.

Focusing on segmentation and differentiation, Purohit quoted the example of UK's Classic FM which is now the most successful commercial radio FM player. Ironically, it is not a mass player but plays only classical music and has carved out a loyal niche audience through aggressive branding and promotion of classical content, informative presentation, concerts and even a music magazine.

Big FM COO Tarun Katial spoke about radio increasing its reach as it moves into smaller cities. Radio content, he insisted, can and should cover community issues like – micro finance, weather, agriculture and trade. The issues that concern the people at the "bottom of the pyramid" can find an outlet on radio says the man whose radio station will be active in all over India – 45 stations in all- by year end. Some of these markets are clearly the mini metros and it will be interesting to see if his words are translated into action on Big.

Talking about more mature media markets like Australia, AFTRS Radio branch head Steven Ahern noted "there was a need to create a primetime around radio as television had clearly managed to do. In Australia, he noted, that breakfast time is really the prime time for radio with a maximum number of drive time listeners. Radio also catered to a very small percentage of night time listeners who were more loyal. Radio players in Australia were actually creating niche programming for this loyal listener."

Donach Criscoil oprating in the UK radio market was confident that radio content would move beyond music and provide both entertainment and information. He also talked about the importance of the 'presenter' who was not just filling in between the songs but a credible personality that the radio listener would keep coming back to.

Carrying forward this idea of a presenter or a 'voice' on radio was Anil Srivatsa. Srivastava heads India Today's FM division which is looking at the 'talk' format. He insisted that despite the mass leaning towards music programming there was space for 'talk radio' so long as the talk was relevant, engaging and credible.

Sridhar representing the music industry expressed the concern that sometimes the "irreverence of the channel gets translated on air into the irreverence of the presenter which can do more harm than good to a nascent industry. Making a case of this he said, "Mass players playing contemporary hits may result in negative reactions towards the artists and their songs. So you have radio players running a Himesh Reshammiya number so many times, that you are actually forced to tune off the station the next time the song plays."

Purohit ended her presentation by stating that radio players would have to focus on listenership. She coul very well have summed up the inustry's concern when she stated that "another word for focus is sacrifice. But do we have the courage to do that is a question that we as an industry will have to ponder about?"