MUMBAI: Chennai based talk radio station Chennai Live, which turned a year old this week, has announced an array of new shows that will hit the airwaves soon.

Apart from the ongoing shows, the station has launched a couple of new talk shows and is taking a plunge into CSR activities as well. Talking about its new initiatives station director Prem Kumar says, We are starting a CSR initiative for Safe Drive in Chennai. The city has the highest number of road accidents after Delhi and Mumbai. We plan to involve the traffic department, corporates, colleges and a horde of other people for the initiative which will continue for almost a year....

Explaining the talk format that the station offers Kumar says, Talk format does not mean that we do not play music. In fact, we are the only English music playing station in Chennai. Generally the talk link length in between the music is 40-45 seconds for most of the radio stations, for us it may reach to two and a half or even three minutes....

One of the new shows on the station that have hit the airwaves is â€?Outlook' where Outlook magazine editors will provide tips to the listeners on their personal finance management. Another show called â€?Paperbag' will also be aired where critics would review the new books that have been launched in the market. The station has tied up with book store â€?Landmark' for the show. Later the station also plans to start a book club where the listeners can review the books. For music enthusiasts, the station has launched a show called â€?Rock classics' which will play 80s rock music to enthral the audience. Sports buffs can get their their dose of news on â€?Sports Caf?©'. All these are one of their kind shows and you wouldn't hear such shows on any other station,... says Kumar.

The station claims to break away from mainstream FM formats of music-monologue-music and focuses on making radio as a medium for information. Radio is not explored to its inherited advantage in India. There is only film based content on almost every radio station. Radio is a very powerful local medium and its advantages are not capitalized to the full. The idea to start such a talk format non-film music station was to redefine the entire radio landscape,... says Kumar.

For us, the celebrities are people who make a difference in the society and not just film stars. We would be happy to invite the Police Commissioner of the city than just a film star on our station,... he further adds.

The station which completed a year of its operations in Chennai on 8 July claims to have received stupendous success in a year. It is amazing how Chennai has caught on to the format. The response that we garnered is heart warming. Even though our target audience is very niche, currently we have 70 per cent penetration in the SEC AB households which makes our listenership base around 1.7 million. We are also looking forward to acquire some stations when phase III is opened later this year,... says Kumar.