Apurva Purohit , CEO, Radio City

"Unfortunately, there are flaws in ILT. It measures day-after recall, which is equal to saliency; it's not equal to listenership. As a listener, you don't even know what the brand looks like. Typically, what gets picked up is salience, which really is the top-of-mind brand that you might have recently seen in an outdoor campaign. That is why you will see most radio stations do very lowest common denominator marketing - frequency and station name. But is that a way to build a brand?"

From an agency to television, to radio - Apurva Purohit has seen media from almost all sides of the table. Her move to Radio City was one of the high profiled people movements, marking the coming of age of radio as a medium. Today, when the FM space is crowded with numerous players and many more in the pipeline, Purohit takes stock of how far the medium has come and the way forward.

In an interview with Jagadeesh Krishanmurthy, Purohit speaks about life at Radio City, radio in India and life itself. Excerpts:

Q. To begin with, the most recent development at Radio City, that of STAR’s interest in taking a stake in the organisation. What really would be the impact?

They have asked for government approval for taking 20 per cent stake in Radio City; the matter is still pending government approval. But this is clearly an investment at the shareholder level. As far as the operations of the company go, there is no really impact to the running of the company. It doesn't help nor harm us in any manner. We are working completely as an independent and pure radio-play entity.

Q. What station do you listen to?

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Radio City 91.1 FM and sometimes competition (smiles).

Q. So how can channels differentiate themselves and change the situation we have today - the same music on all stations?

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Internationally, people differentiate on the basis of genres. They have jazz, romance, ballet, etc. In India, music is Bollywood music unless you say that I will play regional music. Let me quote an example here. In London, there was Capital Radio, Heart FM and Magic FM. Capital was a typical mass station catering to A, B, C; 15 to 45; giving all kinds of music and it was a large station for many years. Heart FM today is the No.1 station. Similarly, Magic is having very high numbers. What are these two stations? Heart plays only romantic songs for a specific TG which is 30-40 year-old females. And, in numbers it has got more than Capital. Magic plays a certain sound which is again differentiated from regular fare music.

When you look for obvious differentiators, you come to the conclusion that 90 per cent is Bollywood, 10 per cent will be English or jazz or regional. And, therefore, you will get too niche if you build differentiation. I am saying, delve a little deeper - you can actually segment and differentiate beautifully on target group.

Q. Are you doing anything internally?

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We have invested very heavily in our own research with Synovate, which is 'Brand Health Monitor'. For the last nine months we have been doing it and now in 4th track it stabilises. So we should reveal the findings soon. For the outside world, we need a currency. From a 2 per cent share to become a 10 per cent share, radio has to be able to demonstrate its pay-off to advertisers. So we are working very closely with some of the people like TAM and others to develop a better method similar to a 'Diary method'.

Q. So you are looking at such psychographic or TG differentiations?

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Many such things, but that which will impact the product and then we will go out and make a marketing promise.

Q. Again on content, do celebrity RJs and such tactics make a difference to a station?

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I think it depends on the kind of celebrity RJs. Now, radio is all about music and if you have a radio expert coming and talking to you, like Sonu Nigam or Lata Mangeshkar or Roop Kumar Rathod, speaking specifically on their core properties, I think, it works. Because, I want to listen to the creator or the writer of the song and I am getting it. Celebrities like these XYZ TV stars who come on-air -- what is the connection? People watch the TV stars for audio-visuals and that's why he is a star. So, in these cases celebrities don't work. The brand value has to match.

Q. In terms of programming, Radio City has given various firsts to radio. You even experimented with shows. Does the theory of talk work on radio stations?

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Not only in India, but internationally as well, most radio stations are music led. In fact, internationally 80 per cent of radio stations would be music and rest 20 per cent would be chat, talk and news. And this is unlikely to change. Again, in this 20 per cent, news and current affairs are the primary drivers but they are currently not allowed in India. So it is pretty much going to be music.

Q. What are the initiatives that Radio as an industry has taken to be more than just a frequency medium for any media plan?

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Radio naturally has some strengths of its own, which haven't really come to fore now because of poor research in the market and the fact that we ourselves have undersold the medium. We have not marketed the medium well enough as an industry. This has led it to radio taking a slightly lesser position than what it could actually command because of the strengths it has. So that's one aspect where we have to work very hard as an industry, which is where research and marketing of radio is very essential. The other point is alliances which I spoke of earlier; we have to amplify radio power even further by using other support mechanisms.

Q. Can we expect something very soon?

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We want to do it properly. We will get into situations where we will do a pilot and post the pilot, we will put in the diary method in place. Typically, the timeline to move from the pilot to a steady, stable panel will take something close to six to nine months.

Q. Finally, a little on your personal side. How has the jump to radio worked out for you?

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For me, radio has been a new medium and it has been very exciting to work on. I am pretty passionate about music and so I am enjoying it. I also got a good set of people to work with.

That said, at end of the day, for business heads, it's not about the product as much as it is about the business. A CEO wants to work on a business where he or she can leave a mark. They can clearly help grow it; they can help the people they work with grow; they value-add to different dimensions of organisation building; so it really doesn't matter so much what the product is.

Q. Please tell us how do you manage work and family life, and how do you de-stress?

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There is lots of support at home. My husband has been extremely supportive and I am very efficient (laughs). I think there are different things over different eras. When you were 20 to 30, you won't get stressed. It was so much easier to walk away. You did have the fights, resource crunches, etc., with your bosses but you still could walk away. When you are 30 to 40, you actually require outward pillars of de-stressing like retail therapy, party, shopping, travelling, etc. And post 40, it really is things like yoga and meditation in the morning. Life ki Dhun...

Q. Speaking more on alliances, you identified potential in brand services and Vibgyor happened. What are other such initiatives can be expected from the channel?

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We are very clearly looking at how to try and give more 360-degree solutions to our clients, which have radio strengths at the core and other things that can help the client take his brand story further in his interaction with the consumer. 360 can mean alliances with print or television but we are not talking about that. We are saying that there are certain strengths that radio and Radio City have. Let us come up with 360-degree solutions which amplify those strengths.

Now, what are the strengths of radio? Interactivity. Therefore, we are clearly looking at how we can extend that through the Internet. The other is live reactions or feedback an advertiser can get. Therefore, we have an activation alliance with Vibgyor. And finally, radio is an OOH medium, unlike television and print, and that's yet another strength. So we are clearly looking at Internet, outdoor and activation as things which amplify the strengths radio has and will take it further.

Q. But is such a brand personality really a strong enough differentiator?

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Yes. The challenge now is whether this is a marginal differentiator and, more importantly, if it is relevant. We believe it is very relevant to a certain TG - the slightly upper income TG who doesn't want to be cut, who doesn't want to continuously want to listen to jokes at his expense. In Bangalore, even after the launch of all these new stations, our researches show that Radio City is still the number 1. This position is strongly relevant to our core TG.

Q. But in terms of recall, people do tend to remember the more nasty or controversial things...

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This is fair! Between a clown and a formally dressed person, obviously the joker will be more noticeable. But when there are four jokers and a suited person, who will get noticed? You have to be different in a crowd. All our researches, even competitive researches, have shown that there is certain sameness to all the brands and there is a certain difference that Radio City has. So, we have to be more energetic and push that difference even more in phase two now.

Q. In radio, which is more of a hear medium, to what extent is revamp effective?

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Certainly for radio, any change that you make takes time to register because you are relying largely on one sense. You don't have a beautiful packaging or a promo; you don't have anything that gives the brand a touch and feel, so it takes time. However, the other thing is that the core audiences pick up changes very fast and they have an opinion on it. The beauty of radio is that you know immediately if they like it or not. So you are able to change very fast.

Q. Did the coming of new stations actually impact revenue of particular stations?

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It has helped us positively. We were alone in Bangalore and the FM listenership was 15-18 lakh. Over the last two NRS, there has been 10-12 per cent growth. The moment competition came in, FM listenership went up to 25 lakh in one year's time. Now, that listenership did not go to only the new stations. Most of the listenership was duplicated listenership. So Radio City which grew from 15 lakh 18 lakh the previous year, grew from 18 lakh to 28 lakh because the 10 lakh new listeners were listening to Radio City also along with the new stations.

Q. But then cheaper options are available also with more players...

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Yes, new players do not seem to understand that for the medium to survive, you cannot discount it to the extent that you are doing. Certainly the new players are playing the volume game where the effective rates have dropped. That is happening, however, with more established players like Mirchi or City; we are clear that we have a good value proposition and our clients understand that, and are willing to pay for it. In fact, the last one year has been one of the best years as we have grown 38 per cent.

Q. On a different subject, the industry wanted to get together to form a consortium to look into issues facing it. What is the progress on that?

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In fact, there are various people who are doing their own initiatives like AROI in the North, which is a composite of the smaller radio players. We ourselves are informally very much in touch as an industry. The two-three big things that we are taking up as an industry are music royalty, research and how do we build radio as a powerful medium. There is also FICCI and us talking informally. The leading players are making efforts and this informal effort will become structured in time to come.

Q. Coming to research, could you tell us more on the reasons why you don't accept ILT?

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I personally am a believer of research but, unfortunately, there are flaws in ILT. It measures day-after recall. As a listener, you don't even know what the brand looks like. You just like the song, you stay there. So, typically in day-after recall, what gets picked up is salience, which really is the top-of-mind brand that you might have recently seen in an outdoor campaign. That is why you will see most radio stations do very LCD (lowest common denominator) marketing - frequency and station name. But is that a way to build a brand?

ILT measures day-after recall which is equal to saliency, it's not equal to listenership. We have been telling ILT for one year now, to move to a system where you are at least able to give some audio cues. Last year, RED took up the whole issue of link-up in research. If people are listening to 'X' RJ and they identify the RJ equals 'Y' station and things like that, then we are talking genuine listenership.

After one year of personally talking with them, we have given up now. Forget currency, it's not even helping us in our programming.

Q. Once approval comes through of the stake, could we expect more happening between STAR India and Radio City?

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No. We have very good relations with every media party outside. We have equally good relations in print like DNA, lots of channels like Zee, Sony and even down in the south. So, in that sense, for us STAR is a client and a media partner just like the same as a Zee or a Sony would be. And, it would certainly not change.

Q. But that is the kind of promise that Big 92.7 made when they came on board - 'music for young adults'...

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I am sure everybody has a strategy and let me not comment on competition. But the reality is that there is a marketing promise and there is a real promise and the consumer is not a fool. If you make a marketing promise and give the same vanilla product, it is not going to work. But is that reason enough for us to believe the differentiation through segmentation or TG will not work? Nobody has done it. At Radio City we are looking at this very closely and there are lots of initiatives that we are working on.

Q. Coming to the marketing side of the channel, how did the station revamp work for you?

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Yes, it has. Research shows that Radio City is a positive, sophisticated, and a soft station. I think in stage one, one of the jobs was done when we did 'Life Ki Dhun'. But we still need to push forward the whole brand value in a far more aggressive and energetic manner.

Q. Looking at some industry developments: how has radio as a category grown in the last two years?

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It's growing at 30-40 per cent which is higher than the average rate of advertising growth. The next two years, it will again grow at the same scorching space because of the organic growth of new stations. Now, you are in 12 or 15 markets, which will grow into 90 markets by the end of the year. So we are again looking at a 30-40 per cent growth in the next two years. After that, there will be a period of stabilising and consolidation. Players will realign themselves. That, I believe, will happen the year after next, in 2009.

Q. How much radio do you listen to?

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I was a very big radio listener before I joined radio! Now, of course it's my job. And people like us who are on the move, watch less TV and listen to more radio.