Trending Now: Abe Thomas

Today is Abe Thomas’ first day as the CEO, Radio City. It is interesting and exciting to see him return at the helm of affairs of a big radio station.

As is, it is exciting times for radio with First Phase, group 1 investments over and done with. With the key players in expansion mode, and roadmaps being drawn for new stations and cities, there could not have been more opportune time than this for Abe to return to limelight. 

A quick look at his journey so far….

Abe Thomas joined RED FM in March 2005 as the COO. Close on its heels came the announcement of Apurva Purohit’s appointment as the CEO of Radio City in July 2005. This, in a way, was the beginning of radio’s evolution to the next level.   These high profile movements from television to radio created a lot of buzz and FM radio finally ‘arrived’. 

Prashant Pandey elevation a couple of years later to the post of CEO, ENIL (Radio Mirchi) added to the buzz.  One cannot forget Tarun Katial, who led Big FM for a few years starting 2007, and now heads Reliance Broadcast Network as the CEO. While all the four are considered master strategists – Abe with his experience in MTV had a key differentiator as being the one with in-depth understanding of music industry and youth.

He started his career with Indian Express where he grew to the post of Head – All India Ad Sales. Television beckoned, and he joined as Director Sales for SET, MAX and AXN. A larger role as the Revenue Head saw him moving to MTV Networks with responsibility for MTV, Nickelodeon and VH1. Then came the stint with Red FM – the most spoken about chapter of his career so far. His arrival lead to/coincided with, the station’s transition from English music focused programming to Bollywood and Hindi programming. It was under his leadership that Red looked beyond radio and introduced REDActiv (activation), REDMobile (content on digital platforms) and REDCreativ (creative Solutions for Clients).  He joined in 2005, and in 2006 the station became a part of Sun Network. He moved on from there in 2009. It was assumed, to start something of his own in 2009. Rumour also had it that he would be joining Meow FM.

2015 has been an action packed year for him so far, culminating in a high profile appointment. As he set up his own venture One Network Entertainment, a multiplatform network for online video content with a focus on the comic genre recently, also came the news of him joining Hit 95 FM as CEO in April this year. But obviously, the biggest news has come at the fag end of the year. Abe has always been gung-ho about radio’s role and future. In an interview in April 2008, he predicted that radio would garner an 8 to 10% share of ad pie in years to come. Elsewhere, he presented the case of self-regulation and stated that listeners were the best regulators for any radio station.

Moving to Dainik Jagran group, it now owns Music Broadcast Pvt Ltd, and has two radio brands, Radio City and Radio Mantra.  It won 11 frequencies this year, namely: Kanpur, Jamshespur, Madurai, Patna, Ajmer, Bikaner, Kolhapur, Kota, Patiala, Udaipur, Nasik – all non-metros and all picked at a decent bid point. Music Broadcast Ltd already operates FM stations in Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru, Chennai, Ahmedabad, Pune, Hyderabad, Lucknow, Jaipur, Vadodara, Surat, Sholapur, Nagpur, Sangli, Coimbatore, Vizag, Ahmednagar, Akola, Nanded, and Jalgaon.

Radio City, incidentally, was the first private radio station to be launched in the country in July 3, 2001. Bangalore was its first station to go on air.