The Indian music industry has seen a lot of changes in the recent past. Bollywood music has always got its due as it has been considered as the most important source of music in the country. But independent music in India is growing and is being appreciated.
With the massive reach, RED FM has through its radio network across the country, RED FM has launched ‘Ricky Singh Ka VYRL countdown’ to highlight non-film artists and to encourage their music with a simple objective. Promote independent music and music that in its purest form.
Ricky Singh Ka VYRL countdown is in association with Universal Music India which will tell stories of the many non-film music artists across the country.
On the sidelines of the media launch, Medianews4u caught up with Nisha Narayanan, COO and Director – RED FM and Magic FM spoke about the initiative, growth and much more:
Read on.
How did the integration between Red FM and Universal Music happen?
A few months ago, Red FM started a sub-brand, Red Indies, which aims to resolve and support independent music in the country; where mass mediums like radio were always blamed to play Bollywood will now start supporting independent, non-film and regional music.
So under that, we started something called ‘Indie Hai Hum’ with Darshan Raval. After that came, ‘Red Indies Debut’ where people from different parts of the country sent their entries which were judged by a jury and awarded an All India debut on Red FM.
Ricky Singh Ka VYRL Countdown is our latest offering with a similar objective.
The whole idea is to give it more credibility in the form of a countdown show, it’s dynamic in nature, and there’s so much of great music which is being launched regularly, and to recognize all of that and put it all together in a mass medium like radio is our objective.
How would this initiative boost the local raw talent?
There are a lot of upcoming artists. We’re more than happy to support them and play good music. I don’t think that this is changing from a Bollywood driven industry to an artist-driven industry but it’s more about the artist right now. So if the artist is giving us good music, then it can be on Bollywood or online and on the radio.It is becoming an artist-driven industry and Red FM wants to be in the forefront leading that as a thought leader and hence support.
What would be the approximate duration of this property? How has been the advertiser response on the same?
It is a one hour show, will be aired on Fridays, at prime-time, and then repeated over the weekend.
As far as advertisers are concerned, in the last three initiatives that we have done,we have received an excellent response. I think it’s a myth to say that independent music don’t get enough support from brands and advertisers etc. There’s a huge market and the idea is to bring a niche to a slightly more mass audience.
What are your expectations on the listenership of RED FM from this initiative?
We’re doing all this to make radio more relevant. Today the youth is consuming music on OTT platforms and on music streaming applications. The whole idea is to capture a certain youth segment that we hope to convince to tune back into radio.Why should they do so? It is because their favourite indie artists and non-film artists are tuned in and creating new music.
As a platform we should explore radio for social change. Supporting independent music, regional music, and non-filmy music is also a type of social change. So that’s the whole idea to get in more listeners and to get the youth to tune in and to be more relevant in today’s time where digital is growing much faster, so conventional mediums need to adapt themselves and this is one such way.
How will this impact the market share of Red FM?
I’m sure a fair amount ofbuzz, a lot of conversations and a lot of positive responses will attract a lot of brands. The radio industry doesn’t have a measuring tool, but I think we just want to be a thought-leader as far as owning the space is concerned, and hence, we’re so aggressive about it and as I come back to saying that it’s no more a Bollywood driven industry, it is about artists and it is about giving artists the true respect and the platform that they truly deserve
