AC Nielsen ORG-Marg puts Suryan FM on top in Chennai

Suryan FM tops the radio listenership charts in Chennai, but Radio Mirchi is not far behind in its popularity among the Chennai hoi polloi. This has emerged in the Radio Audience Measurement survey done by AC Nielsen ORG-Marg.

According to the study, Suryan FM, promoted by Kalanithi Maran's Sun Network, was declared the most favoured radio station by all the groups interviewed. These include housewives, youth, traders, working people and in-car listeners. While Suryan FM enjoys an overall listenership of 92 per cent, against Radio Mirchi's 33 per cent, it beats the other FM channels hands down in terms of its popularity among the youth.

While 94 per cent of the youth tune into Suryan FM (39 per cent youth tune into Radio Mirchi), working people constitute a marginally bigger interest group for Suryan with 95 per cent listnership (for Radio Mirchi it is 33 per cent). However, among in-car listeners, Radio Mirchi seems to be singing the right tune with 55 per cent of the sample group (1,500) tuning into Radio Mirchi. For Suryan FM, the in car-listenership stands at 85 per cent.

The government-owned FM stations have cut a sorry figure in the popularity chart. AIR (All In Radio) Gold has an overall listnership of 2 per cent, while AIR Rainbow is slightly better at 4 per cent. AIR and Vividh Bharathi are listened to by the same number of people - 5 per cent, whereas Akashvani stations have a tiny population of 2 per cent listening to it.

The study was conducted in and around Chennai, across SEC A, B, C and D. It was a quantitative study that took into account the number of people who tuned into Suryan FM, as against the number who tuned into AIR Rainbow, AIR Gold, Radio Mirchi, AIR, Vividh Bharathi and other local stations of Akashvani. The radio audience included housewives, youth, traders, working people and in-car listeners. The period of study was five days beginning June 28 till July 2, 2003.

Of course, Hansraj Saxena, vice-president, programming, Sun Network has all the reason to be happy. "We know the pulse of the people in Chennai and deliver what they want to hear," he says. "We offer our Tamil-speaking audience a simple programming mix, which has a strong local flavour, catering to every section, right from housewives to in-car listeners. Our level of interactivity with the audience is high and we tune into their moods through the feedback we receive from them. We go by instinct and are sensitive to the needs of our audience."

Promotions - such as giving out utility gifts like Arokya milk coupons for an entire month, free tickets to movie shows, dinner dates with popular film stars - have worked well for Suryan FM. © 2003 agencyfaqs!