Wednesday, November 08, 2006

The 6th of the same

Hyderabad now has six FM radio stations and they all appear to be chasing the same audience.
We now can boast of 6 of the same( OK one slightly different .. but five essentially the same )
and here is what appears to the target market for the stations

  • AIR : Oldies ( or rather whoever has not migrated to other stations ? )
  • AIR Rainbow : Youth
  • Radio Mirchi : Youth
  • Radio City : Youth
  • Big FM : Youth
  • SFM : Youth

hmm.. All of them have a mix of Telugu & Hindi songs. Shouldn't one of them just stick their neck out and go "only Hindi" ? or go "only Telugu" ? How many "me too" stations do we need ? In fact things come to such a pass, where unless the stations play their signature tunes or RJs recite ( yell ? ) their slogan, you don't know which station you are listening to.

Is there no market for Classical (Hindustani/Carnatic/Western) music ? How about a station that plays only English Music?

Extrapolating the Indian Listenership Track to Hyderabad, We should have about 25% of 5 Million = 1.25 Mn listeners. Surely there must be space for more niche stations.

No comments: