MUMBAI: To sustain the reigning position it holds in most metro markets, Radio Mirchi is moving away from contemporary hits and embracing retro music. Radio Mirchi Delhi has introduced two new properties for retro music after experimenting in other 22 Hindi markets, beginning Tuesday. Mirchi has been leading in Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata markets for the last 15 weeks, according to RAM data.
Referring the positioning as the biggest risk since its inception, Radio Mirchi chief programming officer Tapas Sen says, Indentifying room in the market through our internal research, we started playing variety of music since the past two months across 22 Hindi markets. Delhi being our key market was the last one to adopt the differentiation strategy....
With a claimed market share of 70 per cent in Delhi market, Radio Mirchi today introduced two new slots- �90's not out' from 11 am to 2 pm playing songs from 1990s and �Retro deewane' playing music from 1960's, 1970's and 1980's in the afternoon from 2 pm to 5 pm.
Sen elaborates on the differentiation strategy, In a cluttered commercial radio scenario, �variety' seems to be key word and Mirchi has adopted differential music to break through. We have six hours of retro music- �Dheemi local' in our Mumbai market and have still managed to have a consistent top position in the past 13-14 weeks. With only few stations in a particular markets, stations should identify their niches and gamble with positioning....
Changing the music content also helps in grabbing more advertising share for Radio Mirchi. Sen explains, By changing music positioning, there is an increase in TSL (Time spent listening) by the audiences and it also gets more virgin ears to the station. It is increasingly seen that youth are clued in to our retro slots so; advertisers targeting the youth come on board. Also, advertisers are keen to be associated with a differentiated product....
Radio Mirchi is also firming up its strategy for a new multimedia campaign for promoting its new positioning.