Page 30 - AIB | The Chanel | Issue 2 2012

THE CHANNEL | FOCUS
30 | ISSUE 2 2012 | THE CHANNEL
sensitivities are well taken care of
and adapting international formats
to Indian tastes. And you need a
strategic approach to be a trend
setter so that others will follow.
What's in store for radio?
The embargo on private FM
carrying news and current affairs is
expected to be lifted shortly. When
that happens the floodgates to a lot
of other innovations will open. Talk
radio will become a reality and
good radio programming is going
to get developed. And that is when
I see a lot of growth to come.
This year the radio industry will
see major regulatory changes as a
result of Phase III licensing. One of
the major changes will be the
introduction of multiple licences
and with that you can experiment
with genre‐specific programming –
one channel dedicated to music,
one to talk radio, a third to specific
themes such as womenʹs or kids. Of
course it will have to be
commercially viable as well. If a
station serves a 100km radius and
there are 20 other players, they all
depend on local retail marketing
for their advertising income. And it
will be increasingly hard to get a
share of the pie as new FM radio
licences will be granted to
commercial stations, bringing the
number to almost 850 FM channels
in just under 300 cities.
All these changes will also
require specific professional
training which is not needed with
the present music‐based
programming. Once stations start
dedicated target‐based
programming I expect a lot of
professionals to come to the
programming side.
Is to act locally the key to success?
Regional programming is key.
Radio is local, broadcasting to a
100km radius. In South India in
order to have success you have to
broadcast in Tamil rather than run
programming in Hindi. The local
language reflects the local taste and
sensitivities and also from an
advertising point of view attracts
the right target group. The second
important point is to use all
distribution channels ‐ radio, web
or social media. Each radio station
that I am in touch with in India
right now has its dedicated page on
Twitter and on Facebook. Radio
companies are using the social
media platform to get more
interactive, particularly among the
younger audience segment of 18‐25.
That is also a good example of
localisation.
What is happening with radio in the
mobile space?
In India, most people listen to radio
on the move. Mobile is the new
radio in every pocket – at present
there are 650m handset users and
150m new users are added every
year. Not all of those of course have
smartphones, but even if you take a
fraction of that it is a big number.
And even companies like RIM see
the need for radio and have come
up with a BlackBerry with built‐in
FM radio.
The international broadcasters
serving Indian audiences are also
relying more on the mobile. With
RNW we launched a multimedia
website called ʹLove mattersʹ which
deals with sexual education. We
found that people who are
interested in seeking information
on these matters liked using their
mobile to access the site as the
mobile is such a personal
instrument. We have worked on
this with a couple of telecoms and
the huge response from users has
prompted us to exploit the service
from a revenue point as well.
How difficult has it been talking to
operators?
I had to do a lot of spadework
before I started approaching.
Mobile companies donʹt work with
the content owner directly, they
work with the integrator, and each
company has a couple of
integrators. Each company has 200‐
400m subscribers and they all have
their own ideology.
How is the TV sector changing?
Right now India has 625 TV
channels approved by the Ministry
of Information and Broadcasting,
TV represents approx. 45% of the
total Indian media industry. TV
penetration is around 60% of total
households. C&S penetration of
TV households is close to 80%.
There has been a significant
increase in demand for satellite
bandwidth, with the introduction
of HD channels, DTH expansion,
and new channel launches. As
average TV viewing time is still
comparatively low, there is
potential for growth both in terms
of penetration and viewing time.#
Look at
how the
other
party is
going to
benefit
apart
from the
program-
ming
“
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