Mumbai: Within three weeks of its launch, 9XM from the INX stable claims to have overtaken other music channels in the ratings stakes.

Says INX Media`s music entertainment channels head Vikas Varma, "9XM has garnered 41 GRPs in the C&S 15 -24 age group, which is its primary TG in the Hindi Speaking Market one million plus markets per TAM data for weeks 43 to 45."

TAM officials meanwhile say the agency will officially release INX data only from this Thursday, since the launch date provided to the monitoring agency was 12 November 2007.

Providing comparitive data, Varma however says that 9XM has not only overtaken music channels like MTV and Channel V, it has also surged ahead of GECs like Sab, and niche channel Zoom.

The channel, that has not been marketed aggressively, unlike GEC sibling 9X, has grown exponentially in its reach, if figures provided by the channel are to be believed. Its reach has grown by 1.3 million in the last one week in its core TG, while in the overall universe, the reach has jumped by 5.3 million in the same period.

INX`s brand and communications group director Anthony Pettifer says 9XM`s success is a case of classic marketing to youth. "The best way to market a brand to youth is to let them discover it for themselves.

Says Varma," Our focus has been to make Hindi music cool for the people, through the use of our animated characters and the colourful imagery we employ. The rest of the marketing has been done by Bollywood itself. "We believe in Hindi music, as against others who tried other genres and then moved to Hindi film music."

We beat MTV in GRPs in the second week of launch. In addition, the time spent on our channel per week is also higher than on certain GECs too. We were always convinced that there was too much talk and less of music." Adds Pettifer, "We are not revolutionary, but we don`t want to be seen as boring. the marketing is viral and it`s happening on its own. The key thing is create the best word of mouth publicity for the product. And you never become cool by saying you are cool. It`s what you do and how you behave that make you cool."

The channel, says Varma, has turned up a higher reach than its core TG and has touched high GRPs due to the fact that "we have focused on music rather than trying to become a GEC".

Meanwhile, a new batch of Bakwaas Bandh Kar jokes to go on air from Wednesday and a new group of characters called the Beatles will debut in the first week of December. These will indulge in `sher shayari` with an Anglicised accent.

The channel is loath to share its advertising strategy, but Pettifer says, "We don`t want to swamp the channel with a lot of advertising." A lot of innovative branding exercises are on the anvil to exploit advertising opportunities, he says.