Vineet Singh Hukmani is MD & CEO of Next Radio Ltd and has been at the helm of the company now in his 10th year. The company runs FM radio stations in Delhi, Mumba,i Bangalore, Kolkata, Chennai, Pune and Ahmedabad. It also has an online streaming platform www.1cast.in streaming live broadcasts of Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore stations.
1. What does Radio One do differently in India?
In a mass radio market in India, we are the first and only radio station company to target upscale educated Indians through our international formats. In the last year, we are the first and only radio station company to ‘re-broadcast’ our international format FM stations online. This is for the benefit of upmarket listeners who choose to entertain themselves online on their mobiles/tablets. We are also the first to start a dedicated ‘audio business channel’ called ‘Business ONE’ for the young professional on this new platform.
2. How does this affect your business?
Being a highly differentiated radio product as compared to competition, we were able to grow our revenue from innovative on- air initiatives and get revenues from clients who do not advertise with any other radio station. This has helped us resist doing discounted high cost ‘activation events’ for clients that kill the value of radio inventory as other mass radio stations have been doing in India. This clear business strategy has helped us grow 19% on topline and 61% on EBIDTA in the fourth quarter even in a slow economy. This was special as it happened in our 10th year as a company. We were also proud to be adjudged ‘India’s Most Attractive Media – Radio Brand’ by TRA research, a landmark annual study done in India amongst 10,000 brands in 16 cities. (The TRA research is done in partnership with Indian Statistical Institute and Tata Institute)
3. Recent Highlights in the product that stand out?
We have been recognised for 3 content initiatives by awards and client recognition that we are very proud of. The first is India’s longest running travel show on Radio One called – Get Some Sun, anchored by Celebrity actor Ranveer Singh. We have helped so many Indians discover the best global travel destinations through this program. The first ever ‘investment education’ program on Radio in India, for which we were awarded at The India Content Leadership Awards. We are a finalist at the prestigious New York Festival for the touching story ’Sydney To Ganges’ in which we chronicled the story of cricketer Steve Waugh who completed the wishes of his late friend Brian Rudd that his ashes be immersed in the Ganges river in India.
4. Radio One has three international stations and four Hindi stations in its format. How do you create synergy within these two radically different formats?
Firstly, our target audience is the same – meaning ‘upscale educated Indian’, in all cities. We don’t target the masses like others. Secondly, locally we look at what format makes more sense. The market for English music consumption is fairly larger in Delhi Mumbai and Bangalore. However, in Pune, Kolkata, Chennai and Ahmedabad, we run Hindi songs – with English talk. In the night bands from 10pm-1am we run English in these smaller markets also. We also have an international music day once a month in these smaller markets to allow for national advertisers to take advantage of our English expertise and create the right premium connect for their brands. Our task is to super engage the ‘global indian’ in India and we do things differently to engage them in each market all the while retaining the base fabric of ‘premium audience engagement’ at the foundation.
5. How do you engage your audiences differently?
In IRS 2017, our reach in seven cities is 5.94 million listeners, out of which 4.2 million listeners are in Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore in our international format stations. Our game is to amplify engagement and not amplify reach. We have created strong city based facebook pages that have 1.2 million plus fans. These have the largest likes in their respective city as compared to any other radio station. We mirror our content on these pages and create a seamless bridge between our on-air product and social media engagement. We also have separate audience interest facebook pages which has helped us aggregate listeners nationally based on their interests areas like Travel , Sport, Women Achievers, EDM, Rock, Festivals etc.
Since our advertiser sees this on air as well as online engagement, they don’t even ask us to do ‘on ground activations’ as they know we target and engage a well profiled target.
6. Where to professional and personal objectives of leadership align?
It feels good to be recognized both as a company and personally as being a ‘pioneer of international radio’ in India. We are good at not only doing different things, but also doing things differently! My greatest achievement and blessing is the wonderful team I work with and I am fortunate to be with them.