MUMBAI: Newspaper in an audio format? Probably an alien concept. Well very soon, the city of Nawabs and Kebabs, Lucknow is to witness to this alien concept. Lucknow-based publication Gaon Connection is planning to launch an audio newspaper after they discovered that enhance them to reach the audiences who are unable to read but are keen to get an update on various happenings around them.
Speaking to Radioandmusic.com, Gaon Connection, editor and co-founder said Neelesh Misra, “We are planning to train our reporters and writer in Lucknow to edit and put a layer of music to create the audio files of their stories or features. It will be mostly four-five minutes audio file. The stories that cannot be published due to space constrain in newspaper will also be available.” The paper commenced last year in December and operates across Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh. He stressed, “We plan to cater to half of the people in the rural areas through this service.”
Gaon Connection has tied-up with content aggregator OnMobile to make the services available through all the telecom operators of India at a price that would not go beyond 20-30 Rupees. He said, “We have almost finalised the deal with them.”
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On asked about the integrated adverts with the audio newspaper, he said, “We are open to that also. We are looking at any form of advertisements.”
Misra mentioned that it was his radio activities that somehow motivated him to take up this audio newspaper concept way too seriously. He is a popular ‘story-teller’, ‘journalist’ and ‘poet’. He has also founded a content creation company called Content Project which produces content across media verticals. This popular voice on radio also mentioned radio during the conversation, he said, “In the radio space, I would like to innovate with content which will involve something more than my voice,” expressed Misra.
