MUMBAI: Music streaming service Dhingana’s radio jockey curated radio stations might have raised many eyebrows but this service has pushed 150 per cent more engagement on weekly basis for Dhingana. Now, the Indian social music streaming service plans to use these radio stations to generate new revenues for Dhingana.

Speaking with Radioandmusic.com Dhingana chief executive officer Rohit Bhatia says, “After the introduction of radio stations, our users are listening to 25-30 songs per week. This is a huge jump in engagement and thus radio stations have helped in increasing the brand loyalty and retention among the users. There has been 150 per cent more engagement on weekly basis for us.”

Radio Stations are not just benefiting listenership and engagement but have helped with monetization. “In India, there are brands that are inclined to get connected with music. We are in advanced discussions  with these brands to associate with our radio stations. Thus brands will get an unique advertising solution while Dhingana will gain a promising revenue stream," he says with a sense of pride.

With an aim to redefine music streaming services, Dhingana had announced radio jockey curated radio stations in April. Programmed and curated by Dhingana’s music experts, 20 radio stations cater to various music categories and genres including bollywood, regional superhits, indie pop and devotional.

“We plan to expand our radio stations with around 200 stations so that we can cater to different genres, theme and artistes,” Bhatia adds.

Dhingana radio is available on the web and android and will become available on iOS in the coming months. He further adds, “The reason Dhingana radio has been doing well is because of the surprise element radio stations provide.  Also the fact that the songs selection is not based on some algorithm but is crafted by a team of music experts.”

As reported earlier, radio stations will be updated with new content that encourages music discovery and new radio stations will be added to enhance the reach to all music languages and genres. Stations will also display real-time information on movie and artist biographies while the songs are being played.

The radio stations are developed keeping in mind social networking sites- Twitter and Facebook, and allows users to like, favourite, comment and share stations with their friends.

On asked about partnerships, Bhatia had informed earlier that Dhingana had put in considerable amount of investment on the development.

Dhingana is available on the Web, mobile Web and as an app for iPhone, iPad, BlackBerry, Android, Windows and Nokia devices and the new addition does not require any changes to the existing Dhingana apps. It is looking forward to promote it much further by organizing events and various contests.

In a short span of four months after taking the responsibility of a CEO Bhatia has helped the company to rake in big moolah and is working dedicatedly to make it a leader in its own space. More developments and initiatives to tap more consumers- first time users and retain the existing consumers will be announced soon.