BANGALORE: Radio One’s Bangalore station completed two years in Bangalore on 16 November. The station that targets the ‘fataafat generation’ (18 to 24 years) of listeners, lays claim to the number three position in terms of listenership in Bangalore, the top slots being claimed intermittently by either Radio Mirchi or Big FM.
Unlike other major metros in South India, demographically, Bangalore’s population comprises almost 70 per cent non-Kannadigas, and a big slice of Radio One’s listeners are people who enjoy Hindi music. Radio One understood this very early and changed from a 30:70 Hindi:Kannada station to its current avatar and over its two year existence, has morphed to become the only Bollywood music station in the garden city.
“Stations that say that they are number one after the coming of RAM use parameters of 12 plus and Sec A, B C D and even E. Realistically, nobody wants to talk to a D or an E. As far as the 18-24 Sec AB goes, we alternate between being number one, two and sometimes three. A radio savvy advertiser knows that he can reach the right kind of target audience through just a few stations. So he may select one Kannada station, one Hindi station and, one English station if they have the resources,” says Radio One Bangalore Station Head Shyju Varkey.
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“We have a definitive programming positioning. I don’t think any other station has one, most go with the kind of music that they play, based on the city in which they are present. No station has positioned itself as defining the kind of audience – they may speak of their being a Kannada station with adjectives,” adds Varkey.
On the station’s journey thus far, Varkey says that it’s still going to take some time before a level of comfort is reached. “I think it’s at least a year or a year and a half away for any station to reach any level of comfort,” he says.
That its model has been successful is evident from the fact that it has been able to garner over a hundred advertisers’ month on month over the last few months, and Varkey is confident that over the next 18 months, the station should turn profitable.
The station has been involved in creating communities through innovative programs such as College Champions which completed its second edition this year. Many of the participants act as campus RJs for events in their institutions for Radio One and report on air about these events.
Radio One has come up with innovative advertisement solutions too, teaming up with apparel retail outlet Weekender to create a fataafat radio experience for the launch of the freshly renovated Weekender store. Between 4 pm to 9 pm on a Saturday last October, the station shifted its studios to the Weekender Store on Commercial Street, offering a chance for the fans to see the their favourite RJs in action.
Varkey runs a ‘lean station’ with the ‘highest productivity among its peers’, boasting a staff of 30, and a low attrition rate. Varkey says the station has lost just five people over two years, with “Not a single person who left us is currently working another radio station,” according to Varkey. The core RJ team is still the same.
Radio One has also won the IRA Promax Best Show of the Year for their Breakfast Show (Bengalooru Fataafat) as well as RJ Of the Year – RJ Prithvi.
