Sajjad Chunawala, Station Head, Mumbai, Fever 104 FM, has played a key role in conceptualizing and setting up the station. Before joining HT Music and Entertainment in 2006, Chunawala has worked with entertainment leaders like Sony BMG, Turner International and MTV. He also had a stint in the advertising world at Ammirati Puris Lintas. He speaks to agencyfaqs! about his experience at Fever FM.

Q. When Fever FM was first launched in Delhi, there was at least one radio station claiming the music-only tag. What made Fever FM adopt the same strategy?
A. The music-only format is actually a Virgin Radio strategy worldwide. Hit 95 FM did have a head start on this front, but we have just followed the format which is a Virgin property. It’s not a question of one station following the strategy of another one.

Q. Wave 3 of ILT results show that Fever has seen a growth in listenership of 6.9 per cent. Given the large advertising campaign surrounding the launch, what is your reaction to these results?
A. We are very happy with the results. All the other players had a 4 or 5 year head start over us. Yet, we managed to get to the top of the listeners’ minds. We did a post-launch campaign research, benchmarking other radio stations, and we found that Fever FM had the highest conversions. Our figures showed that maximum number of listeners had heard our station, which was very encouraging.

Q. So far, Fever has been a little quiet on the ‘activation’ front. What's your on-ground activity plan?
A. We do plan to do more on-ground activities, but what we are doing right now is working on customized proposals for clients. When we go to a client, we do not look just at the sales of spots, but an overall concept-execution plan. Activation can be outsourced, and for a small company like us it doesn’t make much sense. There are lots of agencies which offer these services, so it is not a disadvantage to us.

Q. Being a music-only station, how do you differentiate that music to represent that station? Especially since you've started airing ads? Do you plan any further changes in your programming strategy?

If we talk about Bombay for example, most of the stations have block programming. They try to target everyone with a single station. So, one station may have an afternoon block for housewives. It will also have another one for college kids or office goers. When you have only one station, you don’t have much of a choice. But as the market evolves, you have to focus on your target audience. We have a very clear and tightly-defined target audience. Our listeners always know what to expect from our station.

We want to own the platform of ‘music’. We are ‘all about the music’ and we want to own that platform. The ads have not really affected out listenership because our ad breaks are very short. Since FM radio is a free-to-air medium, there is no other source of revenue expect advertising - unlike TV, which can earn from subscriptions.


Q. What are the advantages of being a part of a conglomerate like HT?
A. We work very closely with the Hindustan Times newspaper group. And it obviously helps. HT is a professionally-run and very large and respected company. Apart from that, Virgin Radio is a leader in radio across five continents. Virgin customises radio programming to the local markets. HT being a media giant and Virgin being a radio expert is fantastic for us.

Q. Where does Fever FM plan to go next? Do you have a different game plan for the smaller cities?
A. We have big plans. We’ll be in the fray for more licenses and multiple licenses in the same city. We don’t plan to move to small markets. In terms of number of licenses we may be the smallest, but in value we are the largest. For instance, in Bombay we bid Rs 35 crore for our license. We are very clear that we want to be a large-city group. We don’t see the sense in operating radio stations in very small markets, because the returns on investment don’t work out.

© 2007 agencyfaqs!