I&B ministry is totally insensitive to radio's needs: Vineet Singh Hukmani, MD, Radio One

Adgully had an exclusive conversation with one of the major players in the segment Radio One. Vineet Singh Hukmani, Managing Director, Radio One talks about the journey so far, plans ahead for Radio One and also talks about the sector at large.

Looking back to the time of launch and the journey so far Hukmani says, "We function well as India's best metro network. We are positioned as a metro innovator for business-to-business (b2b) and the pitch magazine number one radio brand status was given to us as a result. We are India's only focused music station. We are a specialist music product not a generalist radio station. We have done all this with the lowest headcount and lowest marketing spends."

With the beginning of the year, the station has gone through some major restructuring in the business and programming team, which can be a hint towards the brand getting aggressive this year and planning to expand. Commenting on this, Hukmani briefly says, "Our story is "quick break-even with low cost operational set up' in all our markets. We would like to have 2-3 metro or mini metros more and build our revenue through an excellent product."

In the cluttered space where almost every station has typically the same kind of content, Hukmani says Radio One focuses on music lovers of SEC AB between the age group 18-35. He further explains, "Our listeners differentiate us from the rest because we offer maximum music and maximum choice of music in every hour. Our jocks are called Music jocks who are experts on music and they form an excellent connect with the listeners on the common love for music. We are a passionate specialist in a sea of generalists."

The current IRS report has shown an overall decline in the listener-ship of stations across the sector but Hukmani has a very strong thought on this and believes that the listener-ship measurement needs high reach method. He explains, "IRS is not current enough. It comes 6 months late. RAM is not accurate enough as the sample size is too small, the methodology is flawed. The industry needs a low cost high reach "electronic method' of audience ratings and only then we can get a true picture of actual listenership growth."

The industry is very potential but the constant delay in the Phase III policy for Radio reforms is believed to be the major hindrance in the way for the industry growth. Hukmani demands, "At least from phase III onwards, the radio players must also start to make profits. In the last 2 phases only the government has made money. To do so, the most important thing is to extend license fee term from 10-15 years and not have music royalties more than 3 per cent of net revenues. Its time the investors start getting their return on capital." He further explains, I&B ministry is totally insensitive to radio's needs and they have no desire to protect and nurture the industry as a parent would.

"They are interested only in short term license fee gains. The government is over regulating the industry and is not providing parity with Television on this issue. They still want radio to take a news feed from AIR or Doordarshan. As radio players we would love to have genre based low cost license stations and news reach on radio would be unparalleled. We are also willing to provide our own self regulatory mechanism which even TV has not done" says Hukmani. He further says that accumulated losses of the industry are over Rs 2000 crore and it is not possible to recover these even in 14 years!

As the phase III is quite around the corner and if these demands are fulfilled, what can be the future of the Radio Industry in next 5 years. Hukmani answers, "The dream is to see it commanding a healthy 8 per cent of the advertising pie. The dream is to see it thriving with various genre based stations giving listeners differentiated stations. The dream is to see radio as the highest rate of growth medium in India. But these are all dreams until the government does not open its eyes."