MUMBAI: Exploring the digital medium to the fullest and making existing business grow, is the best way to get through this medium. Understanding the vital role of digital medium, radio has introduced the content online which includes RJ talks shows, songs and so on. With this radio is all set to grow.

Despite the growth expected, the radio fraternity is still waiting for a level playing field from the advertisers. However this has not halted the expansion of the networks. Recently, Radio City’s web radio station PlanetRadiocity.com introduced a regional web radio stream – Radio City Tamil in order to expand its web network.

Talking to Radioandmusic.com about the importance of research, Radio City SVP and business head, digital media and new business Rachna Kanwar said, “We have done an extensive research on the type of content to be played, need of the consumers and so on. We took about six months to understand the market before we started this online station.”

Further highlighting the change in the perspective of the advertisers she added,”“Since past two years, we have advertisers for our site and they (advertisers) are slowly opening up to the digital radio platform. Many even allocate special budgets for digital advertising space, so in coming years we hope to see an expansion in the space.”

Before starting Tamil online services, Radio City already had five stations- Fun ka Antenna, Freedom, Indipop, Hindi and Smaran. “Web radio gives a platform to experiment with content. We have experimented with talks shows. Recently, we had Raageshwari, on board, Radio City Smaran. We are looking forward to introduce more such interactive content in the future,” she said.

“Web gives us the option to expand and reach newer audiences in India and around the globe. Today, a lot of the music consumption happens digitally. We have understood that thus more and more consumers are switching to digital content,” Kanwar said.

She further added, “Every quarter, we plan to add new station. Now, we have shifted our focus in developing web stations based on regional languages.” Every month, PlanetRadiocity have around about five million users streaming all their stations from around the globe and 120 countries abroad.

Web-radio has its own set of challenges. “We are dependent on music labels for our content. Music licensing for digital media is still unorganised and unstructured which is a challenge,” stressed Kanwar.