<FONT COLOR="#FF0033"><B>India Radio Forum: War of words results in Balki-Athreya showdown</B></FONT>

At the India Radio Forum held in Mumbai recently, things took an unprecedented turn. What started off as an innocent session on originality in radio, ended in a verbal spat between members of the radio industry, advertisers and the creative fraternity.

It all started when R Balakrishnan, national creative director, Lowe India, was invited by moderator Mike Powell (vice-president, international, RCS Inc.) to speak about why agencies aren’t doing enough creative work for radio. “In all my years in the ad industry, I have never worked on a radio ad,” began Balki. “That’s because I’m not excited about radio. No one sacks us if we do a bad radio ad; clients sack us when we do a bad television commercial.” According to him, radio is still just an add-on medium, loaded with ads that carry Gabbar and Big B imitations, or “shrieking nasal voices in the name of humour”. Balki went slightly over the top when he said that he is yet to hear of a brand that has built itself through radio. Powell interrupted, “McDonald’s has done that globally.”

That did it. Tarun Katial, COO, Big 92.7 FM, stood up from amongst the audience and shouted out, “Hold on, Mr. Balki. I’m amazed at how unaware you are about the developments in the radio industry. The Government of India doesn’t allow for commentary on radio. I’d be sorry if I was a radio advertiser with your agency.” Amidst applause, Balki countered, “Why don’t you run cricket commentary contests on radio? Surely, there must be something other than music.”

That had the audience (a vast majority were radio folk) guffawing. “Balki is right,” continued Athreya. “Advertising isn’t sexy enough on radio. But you don’t do advertising because it is sexy; you do it because it works.”

He had won over the audience by then, and there was no stopping him. He relentlessly said that more often than not, it is media planners and the advertisers who come up with the creatives as “they never reach the likes of Balki”. According to him, the root of the problem is that advertisers (except retail companies) and agencies don’t understand the power of radio as a local medium, and often slap national creatives and television briefs onto radio. They often give five minutes of their day to thinking about radio advertising, while they are busy “shooting an ad film with Yana Gupta and Prahlad Kakkar in Prague”.

Encouraged, Athreya looked pointedly at Balki and quipped, “You guys are all about long hair and Guns & Roses, while we’re about long faces, Phool aur Kaante.” Athreya ended by saying that Ameen Sayani and ‘Binaca Geet Mala’ are household names years after they’re not on radio; such is the power of the medium.

Balki wisely chose to stay quiet throughout this outburst. Perhaps he was outnumbered in a room full of radio folk.

Other speakers such as Rahul Welde, general manager, media services, Hindustan Lever, stressed that radio advertising should go beyond 10 and 20 second spots, or even RJ mentions. Agreed Tapas Sen, national programming director, Radio Mirchi, “When TV spots became clichéd, the industry came up with the concept of crawlers. Where is the radio equivalent to that?” he asked. Further, he pointed out that the reason Balki, Athreya and Katial were at odds is simple: Radio is a 3 per cent medium today, both in terms of market share and mind share. “Unless programmers, advertisers and agencies assume their mandates and increase this figure to 13 per cent, no consensus will be reached,” he concluded.