Not So Radio-Active

FM Radio has largely shunned non-Bollywood music, but there’s a way it can be more inclusive.

- Anurag Tagat

A FEW YEARS AGO, COMPOSER singer Vishal Dadlani was traveling back home one night after a gig at Blue Frog in Mumbai when his cab driver was tuned into Radio One 94.3, one of the few English music FM stations. On air at the time was Mihir Joshi on a show dedicated entirely to Indian alternative music, called One Mumbai One Music. Joshi, whose first stint was at FM Rainbow, recalls, “A Pentagram song came on and the driver was grooving to the music. Vishal took a photo or video and showed the entire band. If this guy can groove to a Pentagram song, then every radio should play it.”

Radio, both private-owned and part of the All India Radio network, have shone the spotlight on non-Bollywood music every now and then in the decades that it has proliferated. For the most part however, this has been through a few-hour slots hosted at low tune-in times, like a weekend afternoon or late night. Vehrnon Ibrahim, the erstwhile programming head for the likes of Radio Indigo in Bengaluru and other stations across the country for about 14 years, says the ecosystem has been very different in India compared to other countries because of the popularity and mechanisms in place in the Bollywood industry. He says, “It’s straightforward—you play Hindi and you get tens of millions per market. Those numbers go down by 1:100, 1:1000 when you play indie. No sponsor is going to say, ‘Well, that makes sense to me.’”

Ibrahim says as part of writing policy for radio programming, his team would research music—“Around 200 to 300 songs twice a year or so and pick 100 songs to put on heavy rotation”—that would essentially keep people from changing the channel. “What I’m selling to an advertiser is the number of listeners and how long they’re listening for,” he adds.