I was amazed and thrilled when I used my new Sony Car Audio for the very first time.
It was like any normal car audio system. The only USP was its USB Port. That means I have the liberty to play my favourite music – that too non stop and without touching the system.
So I stored almost 500 songs in my pen drive and played it all month long. I don’t remember that if I ever switched to the FM radio while driving. Like me, I am sure there are innumerable people who are doing the same and that’s a new category coming up, which is turning folks into Non Radio Listeners. And that is dangerous for radio.
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Nowadays, a lot of equipment is entering the market with data storage devices like – Cell Phones, Pen Drives, iPods, Hard Drives, Digi Cams, Memory Cards etc. Most of them are handy and capable of storing music to a great capacity. Therefore, the youth and people who are aware about even a little bit of technology are using it.
That is keeping them away from listening to the radio for music. These storage devices are capturing the SEC-B category listeners very quickly. By any chance, if you have read the IRS report of 2009 then it has shown an overall drop of more than 2.5 per cent listeners. That means listeners are drifting away from Radio and turning into non listeners.
Now see the whole thing from the radio perspective. If we see minutely, then radio is fighting against each and every mode of entertainment and especially these storage devices. Industry professionals are aware about it and they are trying hard to sustain and increase the listeners. We can only hope that things will improve and radio listeners will consume radio for music as always.
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Lokesh Gulyani, Radio & TV Programmer, Jaipur
