Apr 13, 2010 06:34 PM
7377 Views
It all started with Radio Mirchi, which had substantial market in Delhi, Pune and Bangalore, Hyderabad and Mumbai. Next joined Radio City, seeing a big market, wide open, without much competetion. The running was smooth, untill now, suddenly Big FM has decided to compete with the two big players in this domain, for a share of the market.
All these three channels have played it safe, by starting with majority of airtime playing Telugu songs. And that too, I should mention Hindi new film songs. If there was ever a way to download Hindi movie mp3 songs (tollywood) off Radio, it would work perfectly well with the kind of FM channels running in Mumbai. All type of songs, all the time. I hear its got a little better now, with a fair mix of all kind of songs playing, every now and then.
Radio City chose to run its tagline, tune into the city. Radio Mirchi altered its line to get a more local feel by adding ” Idi chala hot guru !” as its tagline. It basically means, “This is very hot dude. BIG FM hasn’t yet started any promotions or any hoopla about its release as yet. It does have two huge hoardings right across that I see every morning. Trying to word of mouth tactic ??
What would be great to have, is WorldSpace kind of concept put to effect on FM. Tonnes of channels to choose from, very specific channels, each catering to a niche segment of the market. And these channels can run very well on advertising, without charging any money from the users (listeners).
World space in Mumbai is doing exceedingly well, and it did better before all these FM channels came into existence. But surely, going forward, no one is going to BUY radio !
I can understand the fact that setting up a whole Radio channel is not an easy thing. Far from it, I’m pretty sure its a very difficult task. Buying airwaves, to having the music collection. Getting govt. rights and stuff to having a business model running from day 1 is something that needs planning and a lot of infrastructure base. It definitely has taken Mumbai a long time to kick off, but now that we are up and rolling, nothing can stop us !
Here are some fun facts about these private FM channels that you might not have known.
Radio Mirchi (currently running in 10 citites in India) is owned by Entertainment Network India Limited (ENIL) which is a subsidary of the Times Group.
Radio City is currently running in 18 different cities/towns in India. It was launched in Hyderbad in March 2006.
BIG FM is owned by Adlabs which is owned by Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (ADAG). Good stuff huh?
I totally think Mumbai should have a lot more FM channels, each serving a targetted audience. English, Hindi, Pop, Telugu, the list goes on. Everyone wants something different. And one day, everyone will get what they want.
Here are some Goodies:
Found some good stuff about Radio City here: radiocity.sifymax.com
