It’s a musical fiesta for the city with at least seven private FM stations playing 24x7. But, the average Mumbaikar isn’t really a lark when it comes to early morning crooning.
MUMBAI: It’s a musical fiesta for the city with at least seven private FM stations playing 24x7. But, the average Mumbaikar isn’t really a lark when it comes to early morning crooning.
The city might be the richest markets for advertisers on this medium, but it is only after 10.30 am that listenership reaches its peak in Mumbai. This is a far cry from other cities such as Bangalore and Kolkata where FM listenership touches its trough early in the morning — by around 7:30 am.
According to the findings of a panel of TAM Media Research’s Radio Audience Measurement (RAM), Mumbai also spends the least time listening to FM compared to the time spent on the radio by listeners in the other three cities.
Moreover, on weekdays when listenership peaks in other cities in the evenings (on account of people commuting from work to home, college, etc), Mumbai is still not tuned in well enough.
And even on weekends, the average daily listenership of FM radio in Mumbai is the least, according to RAM.
The findings come across as a surprise because the average commute for the working class in Mumbai is longer than the people in the other three cities.
If one looks at the share of total hours spent on listening to FM while on travelling between home and office, Mumbai leads the pack in the out-of-home consumption of this medium.
These findings also take into consideration FM listenership in places such as shopping malls, restaurants and buses.
One reason for the low reach of FM in Mumbai is the least use of portable listening devices and FM-enabled radios. Ironically, the city relatively has the highest FM-enabled mobile phones.
“All these cities have at least 6-7 FM radio stations. Bangalore certainly has lot more people tuning into FM stations than the rest. People in the city wake up early to tune in to Suprabhatam, a programme on Sanskrit hymns, which is aired by most of the FM stations in Bangalore.
Pradeep Hejmadi, senior VP, TAM Media Research, said, Kolkata gets the earliest sunrise and listenership reaches its peak in the city as early as by 6 am.
The findings clearly allude to the fact that the FM listenership is currently the highest in cities where most of the content is in local languages or have a generous dose of local flavour in programmes aired throughout the day.
L V Krishnan, CEO, TAM Media Research, said, “Regional language content ensures listener stickiness, especially in non-metros where people seem to be more tuned in throughout the day. One reason why some metros consume less of radio may be simply because people in these cities are too busy to tune in.”
Kolkata has at least two Bengali FM stations — Friends FM, Aamar FM. In Bangalore, there are several stations airing Kannada content. Consumption in both the cities is high throughout the day, but since denizens of Bangalore retire early in the night, listenership in the city sees a steep decline after 8:30 pm. Kolkata is probably the only city that continues to get high listenership even till late in the night.
TAM further notes that the gender profile of FM radio listeners is skewed towards males with almost 52-58% of listeners being males.
c_arcopol@dnaindia.net
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