New Delhi : Narendra Modi’s ‘Mann Ki Baat’ has emerged a big revenue-generating property for All India Radio, which has already collected more than Rs 25 lakh from advertisers for the coming Sunday’s programme, an AIR official said.
“We made a proposal to market the PM and the management agreed,” said the official who deals with advertisers. While Modi is using the national public radio broadcaster to reach out directly to people across the country on a pre-decided Sunday every month, media planners say it has given the AIR management an unparalleled opportunity to attract big advertisers.
CVL Srinivas, South Asia CEO of media conglomerate GroupM, said Mann Ki Baat has all the ingredients to become a blockbuster show on radio. “Different kinds of brands can associate with it and also cover markets which are not covered too well by TV and print,” he said. “But the popularity has to grow and it has to be sustainable for the programme to stay exciting and command a premium over other content on radio.”
Interestingly, it commands much higher advertising rates than any other programme on AIR including live commentary of the recent India-Pakistan world cup match. A ten-second slot before Mann Ki Baat — which is aired on all AIR channels across India — is being sold at over Rs 2 lakh, while a similar slot costs Rs 10,000-15,000 in the case of important cricket matches.
Private FM radio channels, which can’t be compared because they mostly have different programmes for every city channel, charge anywhere between Rs 500-1,500 per ten seconds per station.
GlaxoSmithKline is one of the first multinationals to have picked up a slot for its Horlicks brand for Sunday’s programme where the topic will be education and the PM will address students.
“The programme has got many advertisers, companies and brands interested in the property,” said the senior AIR official quoted earlier. Even government departments and ministries have bought space, the person said, adding that the broadcaster has sold 105 seconds for over Rs 25 lakh.
AIR is also looking to get regional advertisers on board as Mann Ki Baat is broadcast on 240 channels and is also translated in over 14 regional languages and broadcast after a lag of some time on the same day. Mann Ki Baat kicked off in October last year.
