MUMBAI: It was celebration time for 94.3 Radio One Bangalore's definitive Bollywood Station as it completed 6 years. Celebrations this year kicked off with a groovy drum jam with all the invitees, symbolic of 94.3 Radio One's music proposition of "maximum music, maximum choice" and was led by none other than Roberto Narain.
Apart from the groovy music and the rocking dance performances, the presence of Radio One's most popular radio jockeys (RJ's) RJ Pijosh, RJ Prithvi and RJ Rakesh turned the atmosphere more lively and exhilarating.
All through the six years, the city danced to the Radio One tune, with its unique on-air programmes and contests, making waves in the radiosphere. It's the road not taken that catapulted Radio One to Bangalore's favourite radio station. While other stations chose to tread the mass Kannada or the niche English route, Radio One maintained a sweet spot between the two, and opened out the floodgates of the Bollywood market in the city.
In all the dust that got kicked by all the format changes, Radio One got remembered not as being the sole Bollywood station, but as the station that housed the quirky Chamarajpet Charles, the flamboyant Rajni Saar and the rambling Ulfat Sultan.
In 2009, Radio One exploded into the collective consciousness of the city by taking on Bollywood music head-on- first by steadily laying the ground for Bollywood by kicking off Desi Grooves, the city's first weekly Bollywood party, calling over obscure production houses to launch their films in Bangalore, and making other such overtures.
The real Bollywood came calling presently. What started with a trickle with movies like Via Darjeeling and Chak De India became a deluge with Kaminey, 3 idiots, Raaz, Jail, Karthik Calling Karthik, New York, Ragini MMS and a host of others.
Sharing this thoughts on the journey of Radio One in Bangalore, Shyju Varkey, Station Head-Bangalore and National Marketing Head- Radio One said, "While we have never played the listener-numbers game in Bangalore, Radio One has undoubtedly seen as being at the forefront of the radio movement in the city, the leader by default. Looking back, all it took was some perceptiveness and more than just some rigour."
He further added, "Once we decided that we would not be part of the herd, we invested heavily in delivering a product that would stand as far apart from the rest, keeping the listener at the core of everything we did."