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Mint launches web radio, Business Standard to follow
Available on LiveMint.com, the service enables users to listen to interviews, news roundups and news analyses
LiveMint.com, online avatar of the business daily Mint, has started a web radio service, called LiveMint Radio.
The content of the radio will be powered by an internal team of journalists at Mint and by Kamla Bhatt, who runs a blog and a podcasting site called Kamlashow.com. On this site, she interviews influential people across various industries such as Bollywood, information technology and media, in India and abroad.
Speaking to afaqs!, Durga Raghunath, head, integrated newsroom, Mint, says, "Every week, from Monday to Friday, five shows of 10-15 minutes’ duration each will be produced and uploaded on the site. Users of the site can listen to the shows or download them as well, from November 14 onwards."
To begin with, Bhatt will interview 12 people from Silicon Valley in the US, such as Yogen Dalal, managing director, Mayfield Fund; Mitchell Baker, chairperson, Mozilla Corporation; Reid Hoffman, founder and chief executive officer, Linkedin.com; and Ram Shriram, who is a founding board member of Google.
On Tuesdays, LiveMint Radio will air the Expat Show, which will discuss the problems faced by foreigners and help them settle in Delhi. Every Wednesday, Mint will upload an audio show on gadgets and technology, which is actually an audio version of its blog, Play Things. This will be produced by the journalists who write the blog.
A news analysis programme, Just to Clarify, will be uploaded on Thursdays and a weekly news roundup programme, Week That Was, will be available on Fridays.
On the monetisation of the service, Raghunath says, "As of now, we want to give the Livemint.com audiences a great listener experience. But we have intentions to monetise the service over a period of time."
According to confirmed sources, another financial daily, Business Standard, is planning to launch a similar web radio service on Business-Standard.com in the next few weeks. It has roped in blogger and columnist Kiruba Shankar, who will produce interview based shows for the site.