MUMBAI: Radio Mirchi, which launched on the 104 FM frequency in Kochi on Sunday, plans to target the youth of the city.

According to Radio Mirchi CEO Prashant Panday, "We play contemporary music in Malayalam and Hindi. But we will also play international music as and when it is popular/becomes relevant to the youth of Kochi. Hindi is nearly 50% of the music we play. We are clearly differentiated in the market."

The station will play an equal mix of Hindi and Malayalam. “Our music is full of “punch” – something the youth of Kochi wanted. In our market workings, we found that the young audiences in Kochi are already full aware of Mirchi's national success, as well as the success of our Trivandrum station," he added.

Kochi and Guwahati have launched around the same time, said Panday. “Launch schedules depend very much on completion of transmission infrastructure. In Kochi, the transmission facility was operated privately. Other radio broadcasters were kind enough to accommodate us quickly. We appreciate this gesture of theirs,” he said about the launch of the first Mirchi station among the phase III launches in the country.

The next station to launch will be Bengaluru, and will be Mirchi’s second frequency in the garden city. “Following these three, we will be launching other stations shortly, including the second frequencies in Jaipur and Ahmedabad.”

According to Panday, Kerala is an extremely valuable market for radio broadcasters. “It is a state in which radio consumption is very high. It is also a very important market from an advertising revenues point of view. The share of retail is very high, and radio stations do very good business here. I see Mirchi rising to the top of the charts in Kochi very soon. We are already leaders in Trivandrum; we hope to become leaders in Kochi in a few quarters. We also have Kozhikode launching in a few months,” he added.

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