Mumbai heats up to 98.3

MUMBAI: Shade temperature is touching 40 in Mumbai, and this big, curled, shock-red chilli arrives to tune it up to 98.3. It definitely knows the city’s madness.
Times FM has come back to Mumbai as Radio Mirchi. It was launched at Bandra’s Regent Hotel by hot girl Aishwarya Rai and managing director of The Times Group Vineet Jain on Tuesday. For Mumbai’ites, full-fledged frequency modulation (FM) radio emerged afresh on 98.3 FM, with crystal clarity and portable excitement, after a long lull.
Radio Mirchi, Mumbai, became the first Indian FM station to be launched in a metro.It closely follows the government’s decision to open radio to private players.
It also marks an important stage in the resurrection of a medium that reaches 97 per cent of the people of this country, 90 per cent of whom actually listen to it, even if it is for half an hour a day.
‘‘For Mumbai, Radio Mirchi is a dream come true. Radio has huge potential, but it has been ignored until now,’’ said Mr Jain.
He, incidentally, is the brain behind the too-hot-to-handle brand name. Sharing the idea behind the nomenclature at the post-launch press conference, Mr Jain said, ‘‘It follows the Indian tradition of giving meaningful names, not just Jack and Jill, as in the West. Mirchi is spicy and entertaining. So, it’s not just a brand name, it’s a promise to our listeners.’’
A P Parigi, managing director of Entertainment Network India Ltd (Radio Mirchi), outlined the new dream of radio as a medium.
Talking about the channel’s success in Ahmedabad and Indore, he said there were immediate plans to set abuzz Pune, Delhi, Kolkata and Chennai, besides smaller cities like Bhubaneswar, Cuttack and Jabalpur to Radio Mirchi.
On Tuesday, the sets and props carried the mirchi metaphor to a considerable stretch of imagination. The hotel was dotted with young men in dhotis and kurtas standing beside huge sacks brimming with red chillis.
The welcome girls wore red leather mini-skirts, and if that wasn’t hot enough, there were fire jugglers sending up blazing streaks into the air. The ‘Uff Mirche’ number rolled out of giant speakers.
Aishwarya has a sense of occasion, too. She arrived in a glinting red top and black trousers, holed up with Mr Jain in an autorickshaw which drove right to the edge of the stage. Mumbai’s trademark three-wheeler throbbed with the Sholay spoof, a foretaste of whacky Radio Mirchi programming.
The channel’s entry breaks the dam for the entry of other private operators. Britain alone has more Indian radio stations than India, and even tiny Trinidad & Tobago has six different radio stations which only play Indian music and their local chutney music.
Colombo has 20 radio stations, with advertising share as high as 15-20 per cent.
Moreover, the state-owned All India Radio (AIR) attracts just two per cent of the country’s advertising budget, while across the world, radio attracts nearly ten per cent of ad spend.
In the US, Canada and Spain, radio accounts for 13 per cent, 12.7 per cent and 9.1 per cent respectively of all advertising expenditure.
The pervading concern, echoed also at the global convocation on entertainment organised by FICCI last month, was the steep licence fee structure imposed by the government. In Mumbai, a radio station has to pay Rs 9.75 crore per annum, which appreciates at 15 per cent per year.
‘‘The government might rationalise it eventually,’’ said Mr Parigi. ‘‘I&B minister Sushma Swaraj is serious about taking FM to the villages. In that case, the licence fee will have to come down.’’
So, millions of eager listeners notwithstanding, FM radio in India just needs one important ear now — that of the government.