Comments (0)
News |  17 Jan 2009 10:23 |  By AnitaIyer

RJ Siddharth returns to radio with Meow FM

MUMBAI: Siddharth Kannan, who started as an RJ at the age of 14 and went missing from the airwaves for some time, returns as the host of a night slot on the Radio Today venture, Meow 104 FM.

The show titled, �Meow Masti' will go on air on Mondays, Tuesdays, Fridays and Saturdays from 10 pm to 1 am. My show is very blatant, naughty and doesn't follow any fixed format. It is an adaption of a talk show format by American radio host Howard Stern. It is very unpredictable where neither the listeners nor me as a jock, know what is going to happen on the show.... The three hour show will contain celebrity interviews, gossip snippets, exclusive interviews with foreign artists, Hollywood snippets and English music.

The profile of celebs on my show need not be musicians necessarily; it can be any entertaining personality who had a lot of character. Some of the celebs in my show are Baba Sehgal, Cyrus Broacha, Hard Kaur, Aasma the band etc. Also there would be exclusive interview with Hollywood acts like Enrique Iglesias and others....

Siddharth was last seen on a TV show on Zoom, �Santa and Banta Unlimited' co-hosted with Baba Sehgal and would be returning to radio after a long hiatus of five years, on Meow FM. I wanted to work with a station which would allow me to do things I wish and host a show that is driven by me. At Meow, I have creative control on the content of the show as I am not doing radio to prove myself but because of my passion for the medium. In my show, �Meow Masti' I can do anything in conjunction with their thought process....

Siddharth's brush with radio started at the age of 14 and he also made it to the Limca book of records for being the youngest ever RJ. He went on air as an RJ on Times FM way back in 1994. At the age of 19, he helped set up four radio stations in the UAE and used to outsource content for those stations.

I along with Cyrus Broacha, Suchitra Pillai, Vinay Pathak used to record six hours of programming and send content from Mumbai. I was also involved in setting up of �City 101.6 FM in Dubai and hired RJs for the station....

With the dotcom bubble just bursting, Kannan initiated online radio, Radio FO for Kabir Bedi where again he used to produce six hour content with Cyrus Broacha. Apart from Radio FO, he also assisted in setting up internet radio for Rediff.com. I was involved with a radio institute, �Wild on air' which had 1500 students who got through many Dubai radio stations but eventually I could not devote much time and the venture was wound up....

Siddarth Kannan was seen on television screen hosting a show, �Santa and Banta Unlimited' on Zoom. Santa and Banta Unlimited was originally a radio show with me and Baba Sehgal but the Times group liked our craziness and it ended up being a TV show....

Commenting on the contemporary radio scene, Siddharth says, The RJs of today have too much of character but still we have only a few RJs who are bigger than their shows. Also, it becomes difficult to associate a RJ with a radio station, listeners shift to alternate radio station when RJs take the mike. Radio is essentially music driven today and not RJ driven and there is no royalty towards a radio station or RJ....

The RJ is in talks with a channel for a new television show and says flamboyantly, Radio is my wife but TV is my mistress and can't say away from any.... He has also signed on two feature films.

Tags
Games