In a discussion about the future of Indian radio at the India Radio Forum (IRF) 2015 conference on Friday, panelists agreed that unless there’s more accountability from the stations, the advertisers will not spend more.
The session – ‘It Starts At the Top’ – was moderated by Abe Thomas, Co-founder & MD, One Network Entertainment. It examined the future of radio in Phase III in India with 839 new channels soon to be up for auctions across 294 cities.
Thomas asked what needed to be done to take radio to the next level in terms of revenue at the national and local level.
According to Radio Mirchi’s Mahesh Shetty, while the issue in the earlier phases was about telling advertisers why to use radio, now the challenge is to innovate and get a bigger pie of the advertising expenditure by clients.
Harrish Bhatia, CEO of My FM, which has local stations across many smaller towns in the country, said that while stations are growing individually, the industry is not growing in terms of its clout.
Nisha Narayanan, COO, Red FM, said: “We can’t just sell commercials. We need to focus on other verticals including digital in order to monetize the brands that have been built over the last 10 years.”
Ashwin Padmanabhan, Business Head, Big FM, said: “If we have a space and time, there’s a value to it. But we’ve run out of both and need to create and demonstrate more value for the content and engagement with listeners. We also need to look at measurement seriously and offer more Return on Investment. Content and distribution are equally important.”
While debating how station can raise their value, Harshad Jain, Business Head, Fever FM, said: “With full inventory levels it is getting complicated. We need to realize that it is a category with very little differentiation and content in going to be king. Pricing should be relooked at -at Fever, it has gone down by 40 percent over the last four years. The industry needs to reinvent itself.”
When Thomas asked the panelists what can be done to increase rates, My FM’s Bhatia said: “The industry should come together to create one common currency. There is no science of rates right now. It is the job of the industry leaders. It’s also important to increase the reach of the medium, we have no tool to measure that. It has to be addressed sooner or later. There needs to be some sanctity about how many minutes of ads do we want to run. Are you worried about the consumer? It is a responsibility of the industry to build that credibility. ”
Fever’s Jain added: “If you look at pricing, it has remained flat in radio as against TV or other mediums. I agree that as an industry we don’t agree on what is the currency by which to evaluate it.”
Summarising the discussion, Thomas said that FM radio in India may be poised to grow geographically, but in existing markets it is not growing or is flat while competing with digital and media companies need to differentiate platforms from content.