It has been a little more than two months since I became a part of the radio industry as CEO of Radio ONE 94.3FM. We at Radio ONE have been focussing heavily on our strategy of ‘community engagement’. My whole team has been doing three things – what is participative for our listeners, what is truly differentiated, and what is desirable for our community and not the audience at large.

We have had our own track in place to tell us when we do well and when we don’t. Now with RAM coming in we will be better informed and able to get better with time. We are extremely grateful to our listeners and business partners for having faith in us and we will never let them down on. We expected the growth and positions that we have achieved in RAM and am very sure our team will get more consistent with time thanks to this continuous data.

Some myths have been broken rather quick after the RAM data got released and it was quite amusing to witness various stations claiming one position after the other. It reminded me of school when the results were out and everyone wanted to know who came first and who stood first in a particular subject. What mattered even then as it does now, is one doing better and better than oneself as time goes. It was most amusing to see market leaders of the past lose their cool and question the data itself.

Therefore it dawned that what is important is to use this robust data to plan our stations better and use it as an internal benchmark for excellence. It was also quite clear that using heavy marketing spends to fuel speculation of various No. 1 and No. 2 positions in the form of sub-text and asterixes is a wasteful exercise as now RAM will ensure that all brands do their homework in choosing what’s best for their audience. I am given to believe that in the last few weeks, many brands have changed their plans to give them more focus using RAM.

Let us come to the realities and new norms that have been formed and what all of us should look forward to:

1. That no one station can be the No. 1 across age groups and time bands and time spans. The era of proclaimed dominance and legacy is over. So one would have to look at radio plans with multiple stations satisfying reach frequency and impact objectives.
2. That no station can remain in a particular position of strength unless they work at it continuously. So, today anyone can claim to be a No. 1 or 2. The question is: Have we figured out first how we are going to stay in that position and what contributes to that?
3. That is better to be realistic and look at data (internally) and find the real strengths and weaknesses rather than try to insult the intelligence of advertisers and clients with short-lived claims. The whole radio fraternity can risk looking petty and opportunistic.
4. That ii is better to use valuable radio funds and make them hardworking to get close to one’s communities than to fund the targets of other media like Print, TV and Outdoor with the claims. We as a company have hardly advertised but grown in line with our internal targets of both business yield and community affinity as we are concentrating on both on-air and off-air programming.
5. There is no such thing called a ‘strong’ network of radio stations -- each station in each city needs focus to improve, much like in the restaurant business where people will come to you if they like the food and not because you have 100 restaurants across the country. We have concentrated on Delhi and Bangalore, made it rise as per our standards. Now we are focusing on Mumbai and then one by one to the other centres till we become ‘tasty to listen to’ in the metros. We also believe that the smaller cities will continue to diminish yield of the network brands as advertisers will drive prices downwards in those markets.

People have been calling us up to congratulate us on being the ‘consistent No. 2 in Delhi or the No. 1 Bollywood station in Bangalore’. Some have been telling us how we have beaten so many stations. We humbly accept everyone’s wishes but will continue to remind everyone and ourselves that we will all do well in the new era of FM if we focus on the new norms of evaluation.

What the data tells us is that we are on the right track and improving, and need to concentrate on ourselves rather than others to achieve our objectives. Thank you RAM for opening our eyes. Thank you listeners for participating in Radio One every day, and business partners for giving us a mission to work towards.