Entertainment will have an all-new meaning in 2021: Ashit Kukian

Ashit Kukian, CEO, Radio City, foresees several important shifts in consumer behaviour in 2021. He also sees audio content thriving and platforms playing audio content doing well in the year ahead.

Outlook & expectations for 2021

The current situation has undoubtedly helped us look at things differently. We foresee the following trends in 2021:

• People moving from large social circles to individual close set of people
• Consumer sense of security and economic independence will play a large role in their decision making
• Women will adopt a larger role in the new era given their resilience
• Health will take precedence over most things and thereby we will observe a completely different set of consumer behaviour
• Blurring line between home and office will introduce a culture of hybrid existence to individuals
• Faith in Make In India and dependence on local products will be a matter of pride
• Entertainment will have all-new meaning and the platform of consumption will be different from what we have seen so far
• Audio content will thrive and platforms playing audio content will do well
• The ecosystem will be conducive for young India to move forward with an entrepreneurial mindset

I believe that we will emerge stronger and more stable in the year 2021. 2021 will be the year of importance in bringing about a transformational change that we will see in the years to come.

Key learnings from 2020

The COVID-19 pandemic has fundamentally changed the world and consumers are looking at products and brands through a new lens. We believe some of these habits will continue, even beyond these crises. The most important change that we observe is that consumers will be concerned about their health and economy. A lot of what we do will be aimed at taking care of these concerns.

Our key learning here was our capability to quickly adapt to the changing situation. At Radio City, we have always had a Plan B ready for rainy days. While the pandemic posed a unique situation to tackle, we were swift enough to get our people to safety and quickly put together a roadmap to adapt to the new normal and preserve our resources. Being an employee-centric organisation, it was our responsibility towards our team to look after their needs and requirement while they work remotely and boost their moral while they are confined to the four walls of their house.

The year 2020 also made us learn the importance of being digitally savvy to connect with the audience. Along with entertaining listeners on-air, we further upgraded our digital offerings as well. The pandemic made us to be more innovative and enabled us to move up the digital value chain. Throughout 2020, we created various interesting content and launched multiple innovative and engaging digital campaigns across our social media platforms, which helped us in achieving a stupendous 280% growth in our social media reach numbers.

The WFH era has made it convenient for our RJs to do their shows from home efficiently. Who would have thought that RJs would have been able to work from home? All thanks to the digitisation, where homes doubled up as a studio for RJs to efficiently reach out to their listeners.

The year 2020 was all about reinventing ourselves while still being relevant and true to our audience. To innovate and help people by being a source of entertainment as well as information has helped us sail through the tough year. Our ad-volumes grew by 9% in Q3 FY21 as compared to the same period the previous year acts as a testament that we are on the right track.