MAM
RAM outlines radio listening trends in 9 cities
MUMBAI: Ahmedabad, Chennai and Hyderabad have emerged as the growth markets for the radio industry, according to the second round of ‘9 Indian Cities Listenership Sweeps‘ data provided by RAM, the radio measurement service of TAM.
The Southern metros have seen more than 30 per cent growth in listening thresholds while Ahmedabad has witnessed 15 per cent growth. Pune, Kanpur, Indore and Nagpur have remained at almost the same levels as the previous round.
The second sweeps data is for the period of February-April 2012.
According to RAM, the sweeps release will help the radio industry, including the broadcasters and media planning agencies, to assess the impact that radio is having on audiences in towns other than the major metros.
TAM CEO LV Krishnan said, “The second roll out is as per timelines committed by us to the industry. After the first sweeps in October last year, this second one shows interesting changes in radio consumption patterns. While in some markets, radio consumption base itself has seen an increase, in others granular trends like Out Of Home (OOH) listenership have seen an encouraging increase.”
RAM‘s second sweeps highlights changes in radio consumption behaviour not only across the nine cities but also in comparison to the first round of sweeps which was released in October 2011.
The RAM panel coverage was expanded to nine additional cities – Ahmedabad, Chennai, Hyderabad, Indore, Jaipur, Kanpur, Lucknow, Nagpur and Pune. Prior to that, RAM operated out of the four Indian metros – Bangalore, Delhi, Kolkata and Mumbai.
According to RAM, average audience in morning day part has seen a surge in Ahmedabad, peaking at 9 am with a 70 per cent growth. This is largely due to a 10 per cent growth in cumulative reach. In fact, cumulative reach has grown across all the days, with Sunday leading the pack. While 95 per cent of the audience cumulative reach build up was achieved by afternoon earlier, now 95 per cent of the audience can be targeted by the morning day part alone (at a weekly level).
Time spent, however, has dropped marginally in Ahmedabad, according to RAM data.
Radio listeners in Chennai, in sharp contrast, have significantly increased their time spent, led by the morning day-part band.
The share of SEC C‘s listenership has grown from 37 per cent to 43 per cent, while cumulative reach levels have dropped across all the day parts.
The share of in-home listenership has grown from 76 per cent to 87 per cent. The audience build up has got spread through the day.
In Hyderabad, evening and night day parts have grown significantly while morning has witnessed a drop in listenership levels. The drop in morning day part is primarily due to drop in cumulative reach levels, while TSL (time spent listening) has grown. In fact, across the day parts, TSL has almost doubled across the day parts.
Another significant trend is that contribution from SEC A & B has increased.
There is a 6 per cent drop in share of in-home listening, reflected in the growth of listening share from car/travel/conveyance. According to RAM, equal and high threshold of listenership can be observed across weekdays and weekends. The evening and night day parts add significant amount of audiences to cumulative reach build up.
The other key findings from the six cities are as follows:
Nagpur:
1. The weekly listenership levels have remained at the same levels as the previous round
2. The daily cume reach has gone up, with Sunday being the maximum, but time spent levels are down across all the days.
3. Share of In-home listening grows from 82-87%
Jaipur:
1. Drop in listenership thresholds across the day
2. The same reflects in the cume reach levels across the day parts
3. Dominance of SEC DE in Jaipur‘s listenership contribution is normalized. Proportionate contribution from all SECs to listenership
4. Morning day part continues to be the one where listenership peaks, though at a lower threshold
5. Sunday emerges as the one with highest cume reach and time spent levels
6. The audience build up has got spread through the day. It takes up to afternoon day part to cover 95% of all audience.
Indore:
1. The listenership peaks have interchanged between mid morning and morning, morning peak emerging as the highest. Other day parts are more or less are at the same threshold
2. At a weekly level, morning day part emerges as the highest in cume reach and time spent.
3. Mid-morning day part saw a reduction cume reach levels.
4. TSL level growth in night day part
5. Share of In-home listening significantly drops from 94% to 71%. Maximum growth in Car share of listening (22%)
6. Saturday loses audiences as Sunday emerges as the destination of maximum listening
7. Faster cume reach build up across the day as 95% of the audiences are reached by the mid-morning day part.
Pune:
1. Similar listenership thresholds across the day parts
2. Mid-morning to night, there is a drop in cume reach levels, but across the day parts there is a growth in TSL levels
3. Contribution from different places of listening remains the same
4. Sunday emerges as the destination of highest listenership
5. Audience addition from afternoon grows in the current year
Lucknow:
1. Listenership thresholds drop across the day parts, while night primetime holds the thresholds
2. While there is cume reach growth in some of the day parts, there has been TSL drop across all of them
3. Share of listening from 35+ age group comes down
4. Contribution from in-home listening grows from 89%-93%
5. Cumulative audience on Sunday grow from 82% to 94%
6. Weekdays and weekends have similar thresholds of TSL
Kanpur:
1. Marginal changes in day part wise preferences
2. Growth in consumption share from SEC AB and 45+ age group
3. OOH share of listening grows from 23 to 29%, majority of the growth coming from car/travel
4. Sunday emerges as the clear leader in listening threshold
AD Agencies
Abhay Duggal joins JioStar as director of Hindi GEC ad sales
The streaming giant brings in a seasoned revenue hand as the battle for Hindi television advertising heats up
MUMBAI: Abhay Duggal has a new desk, and JioStar has a new weapon. The media and entertainment veteran has joined JioStar as director of entertainment ad sales for Hindi general entertainment channels, adding 17 years of hard-won revenue experience to one of India’s most powerful broadcasting operations.
Duggal is no stranger to big portfolios or bruising markets. Before joining JioStar, he spent a brief stint at Republic World as deputy general manager and north regional head for ad sales. Before that, he put in three years at Enterr10 Television, where he ran the north region for Dangal TV and Dangal 2, two of India’s leading free-to-air Hindi channels. The north alone accounted for more than 50 per cent of total channel revenue on his watch, a number that tends to get attention in any sales meeting.
His longest stint was at Zee Entertainment Enterprises, where he spent over six years rising to associate director of sales. There he commanded the Hindi movies cluster across seven channels, owned more than half of north India’s revenue across flagship properties including Zee TV and &TV, and closed marquee sponsorships across the Indian Premier League, Zee Rishtey Awards and Dance India Dance. He also handled monetisation for the English movies and entertainment cluster and the global news channel WION, a portfolio that would stretch most sales teams twice his size.
Earlier in his career Duggal closed what was then a Rs 3 crore single deal at Reliance Broadcast Network, one of the largest in Indian radio at the time, before that he helped launch and monetise JAINHITS, India’s first HITS-based cable and satellite platform.
His edge, by his own account, lies in marrying data and instinct: translating audience trends, inventory signals and client demands into long-term partnerships built on cost-per-rating-point discipline rather than short-term deal chasing. In a media landscape being reshaped by streaming, fragmented attention and AI-driven advertising, that kind of rigour is increasingly rare and increasingly valuable.
JioStar, which blends the scale of Reliance’s Jio platform with the content firepower of Star, is doubling down on its advertising business at precisely the moment the Hindi GEC market is getting more competitive. Bringing in someone who has spent nearly two decades doing exactly this, across some of India’s most watched channels, is a pointed statement of intent. Duggal has spent his career turning audiences into revenue. JioStar is clearly betting he can do it again, and bigger.
