Revolution of FM Radio has come a long way since its inception in mid 2001. Bangalore city started with only a couple of channels by then and now count is more than 10 stations. All these Radio channels are trying to woo the audience by various means. Some of these include contests over SMS. I love fever 104, Radio Mirchi’s Double Dharode, Radio City’s Haadu heli lakshaantara gelli etc., are some of the contests. Modus of operandi of all these channels is the same. Propel the audience to participate in these contests by showing big bucks.
If you were in Bangalore a couple of weeks back, you would have noticed huge hoardings promoting these contests. Looks like these contests started as a chain reaction among these channels. Sure there were a handful of listeners making some easy money a the cost of a huge number of audience who registered for these events by sending SMS’s which are charged at premium rates. Both the radio channels and the Mobile service providers made good profits at the cost of small amount contributions! It would be a good case study subject for management students to learn the radio contests business model.
Yes! I was on air with Bangalore’s FM Radio station Fever 104 on Tuesday. In the cab while commuting to office and on way back to home, we usually tune to this channel as this is the only channel that play less of ads and more of music :) . As always, we were tuned to Fever 104 on Tuesday evening too. This channel conducts a show by name “Bangalore Local Roaming” in the evenings. This program is all about identifying the road name based on the location landmark clues. I was lucky enough to get shortlisted for the right answer.
RJ Aarti called me up to get the right answer from me and by giving the right answer, I won a gift voucher worth Rs 1000/-. Yahoo!…. Being on air for the first time is really a special moment. It is fun talking to such an enthusiast RJ. Aarti certainly has the cheerful voice that not many RJs in Bangalore have. She called me up after the show to ask me if I were willing to co-host a show with her for an hour for friday evening. Looks like she has become a fan of my voice too :-P . I was non committal as I am gearing for a major release in the very near future at work. However, I would certainly look forward to host a show on radio sometime soon and will let you all know if any progress happens on that front…
Btw., I haven’t heard back from RJ Aarti on how to collect my gift voucher!.. Hey Aarti are you reading this?
