MUMBAI: With an aim to redefine music streaming services, Dhingana has announced radio jockey curated radio stations. Programmed and curated by Dhingana’s music experts, the first release includes 16 radio stations that will cater to various music categories and genres including bollywood.
Speaking with Radioandmusic.com Dhingana chief executive officer Rohit Bhatia says, “We have to define the space were we are in and we as business leaders should have the courage to experiment and constantly delight our consumers. Most of the music consumption in India today happens via traditional radio programmed by music experts. With our strong technology and streaming platform, we wanted to recreate this radio experience on the internet.”
Dhingana Radio will debut on the web platform, and will become available on the remaining platforms in the coming month.
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As reported earlier by Radioandmusic.com, Dhingana has planned-out new initiatives for every quarter. Revenue generation and user retention will be the strong focus of the global Indian music streaming service this year.
“This launch will enable us to leverage our strength as an online player into the domain of curated radios. Our mantra behind the radio launch has been that listening shouldn’t stop,” he adds.
The first release includes 16 radio stations that will cater to various music categories and genres like bollywood, moods, time of day, party music, chart-toppers, meditation and weekend specials. “Bollywood consumption is the biggest in India and countries like United States, United Kingdom, Australia and Canada have huge NRI communities,” Bhatia informs.
Programmed by music experts, it will be an experience for the users and Unlimited Play Radio allows to create customized playlist. Radio stations will be updated with new content that encourages music discovery and new radio stations will be added to enhance the reach to all music languages and genres. Stations will also display real-time information on movie and artist biographies while the songs are being played.
Dhingana radio stations are developed keeping in mind social networking sites- Twitter and Facebook, and allows users to like, favourite, comment and share stations with their friends. Stations will be integrated with Facebook using the Open Graph API, thus allowing friends on Facebook to see and listen to their favourite stations, similar in line with Spotify. In addition, users can add the current song playing on the curate radio station to their own playlists.
Dhingana has put in considerable amount of investment as getting music experts on board has cost them huge, reveals Bhatia.
On asked about partnerships, he says, “The whole game cannot be done without tie-ups. The biggest enemy of the music industry is piracy. They are stealing music. Everything we music streaming services do is legal and we have to stop the money from getting stolen. Music streaming services give music labels an opportunity to gain back their money. Lets partner and go head.”
Dhingana is available on the Web, mobile Web and as an app for iPhone, iPad, BlackBerry, Android, Windows and Nokia devices and the new addition does not require any changes to the existing Dhingana apps. Dhingana is looking forward to promote it much further by organizing events and various contests.
This is Bhatia’s fourth week in Dhingana as the CEO and he has already launched initiatives to tap more consumers- first time users and retain the existing consumers. “In a productive interview with co-founders Snehal and Swapil Shinde I had promised them to make Dhingana a leader in its own space with many initiatives,” he adds.
Highlighting his experience of working with Dhingana, Bhatia expresses, “I listen to music at work and that is the best part of this job. To develop content and to provide more content there is a need to listen to music.”
The next major step forward for Dhingana will be the premium version for iOS and Windows. According to sources, subscription model is ready for the market.
