Radio City, Radio Mirchi, Red FM lead listenership in Lucknow: AZ Research

Marketing consultancy firm AZ Research Partners has released an extensive report on FM Radio Listenership Trends in 23 cities in India. In Lucknow, the survey, conducted among frequent radio listeners, concluded that in terms of listenership, Radio City (39 per cent) topped the charts by a large margin, followed by Radio Mirchi (31 per cent) and Red FM (27 per cent). Total reach in Lucknow city was estimated at 57 lakh, of which Radio City was found to reach 17.49 lakh listeners in Lucknow, while Radio Mirchi reaches 14.96 lakh and Red FM reaches 12.42 lakh listeners. 

The survey was conducted among a sizable portion of the population across 23 cities, including male and female participating above the age of 12. The report documents factors like most popular radio channel based on listenership, drivers for listening behaviour and preferences, perception of these channels among listeners, top-of-the-mind recall of channel names, programmes, jingles and names of radio jockeys (RJ). Additionally, it also compares radio listenership against other mass mediums of communication like print and television. 

Key highlights: 

• Survey conducted across 23 cities, participants included males and females above the age of 12
• 28 per cent of participants in Lucknow spontaneously recalled Radio City when asked to name radio channels, while 25 per cent spontaneously recalled Radio Mirchi
• 63 per cent of respondents use their mobile phones to listen to the radio as against 23 per cent who use FM radio sets and 14 per cent who use their car stereo systems
• 92 per cent of respondents use their radios at home while another 48 per cent also use it in their cars
• RJ Shiv of Radio City and RJ Tushar of Radio Mirchi saw relatively high salience in recall among participants, both prompting total or partial recall from all participants, even though radio jockey recall was low in the city
• The most popular radio channel in Lucknow alone sees three times higher reach than any other forms of mass media in the city

According to an AZ Research spokesperson, “At AZ Research, we believe in using our expertise to provide insights to the public with comprehensive coverage of the industry that we are researching. There are sometimes perceptions that develop over the years that can become detrimental to the growth of an industry. In this case, Radio has always been a great leveler, and with the advent of FM, its popularity only grew. While today, it is widely believed that radio is a dying medium, our FM radio listenership trends survey brought out results that were able to effectively bust these myths and prove that radio continues to be the primary mode of mass communication in a maximum of the cities we surveyed. This has been one of the most comprehensive surveys conducted on FM radio trends and we, at AZ Research are extremely confident that it will play a key role in decision making of radio channels for some time to come.” 

Coming to perspective and behavioural patterns, it was found that all listener preferences or drivers could be classified into four common brackets – the type of music, the quality of content, the image of the station and the radio jockey hosting each show. The people of Lucknow preferred Bollywood music that was new and played without ad breaks. They preferred radio jockeys that are warm, clear and localised in their speaking style. They preferred entertaining but informative content over one or the other. In terms of music content, 73 per cent preferred old Bollywood music, while a mere 5 per cent preferred old western music. Devotional songs were another popular category with another 40 per cent preferring it. 

Apart from Lucknow, the report on FM listenership trends covers 23 other cities, including Jaipur, Nagpur, Bangalore, Mumbai, Delhi, Bareilly, Varanasi, Gorakhpur, Agra, Pune, Ranchi, Chennai, Hyderabad, Coimbatore, Vizag, Surat, Vadodara, Ahmedabad, Hisar, Jalandhar, Karnal and Ahmednagar. 

Founded in 2010 by Shubhra Misra and Sujay Misra, AZ Research Partners offers services in market research, market intelligence and consultancy services research. Headquartered in Bangalore and affiliated with BMI, it is one of the leading market research players in South East Asia and offers services across the region panning India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Japan and Malaysia. In India, AZ Research operates out of four branches in Bangalore, Mumbai, Delhi and Kolkata and has field presence in over 16 cities and towns.