Radio City, Bangalore, lines up new programmes to celebrate first anniversary

Radio City, Bangalore, the country's first 24-hour private FM radio station owned by STAR, completed a year of operation earlier this week. To celebrate the occasion it has lined up some new interesting shows, interviews and contests that would be unraveled over the next 15 days.

There are definite reasons to celebrate. In one year, the channel estimates, it has notched up a listenership base of 20 lakh and a list of 200 advertisers, who pay between Rs 1,000 to Rs 3,000 (depending on the time of the day) for a 10-second slot. Its roster of advertisers includes Spice Telecom, Citibank, Levis, Deepam (a local saree store), Tata Tea, Bharat Petroleum, Deccan Herald, Godrej Appliances, Nestle etc.

The new programming initiative looks at both music and non-music formats. An interesting introduction would be ‘Sister Stella'. Sister Stella is a Malayali character, who would use music to cure maladies. It is going to be a two-minute capsule between music shows. To begin with, it will be played on Saturdays and Sundays.

It seems the big thrust in the next phase would be to leverage non-music formats. "Radio City cuts across all age groups. It is heavily played in restaurants, shopping malls, petrol pumps etc. So we already have a base who would be interested," explains Arun Katiyar, station director, Radio City, Bangalore.

Side by side will continue its community initiatives like the Janaagraha, support of the traffic police in its endeavour to bring law and order to the streets of the city, and the numerous blood donation drives. Janaagraha was among its more high-profile initiatives. Janaagraha is an organisation that works in the area of participative governance. It is a forum for citizens to get their demands and aspirations heard by the elected representatives. The first phase of the Janaagraha campaign involved getting the citizens of Bangalore involved with the annual budget of the Bangalore Municipal Corporation. And Radio City supported the cause with announcements in ‘What's Up Bangalore', ‘Interviews on Big Mouth' and updates on the progress of the campaign.

Radio City has been launched in Mumbai recently. The channel brass hopes Radio City Mumbai will be able to replicate the success of Radio City Bangalore. © 2002 agencyfaqs!