MUMBAI: Radio One has decided to stop playing BBC's entertainment capsules, after the BBC World Service's decision in July to monetize this pre-popularized entertainment content in the Indian metro markets.

The first market where they were able to do this is in Chennai where this content is supplied to Hello FM.

Radio one is a joint venture between Mid-day Multimedia and BBC worldwide. As a special gesture it was decided two years ago that Radio One would help promote BBC World Service's Entertainment capsules (BBC world service is the content arm and is a different company from BBC Worldwide which has invested in Radio One). This promotion was done by free and high frequency airing of the content in its 7 metro markets. These entertainment capsules that were being aired were BBC Ek Minute, BBC Ek Mulaquat, and the jointly produced shows - BBC Take One AND BBC Fun n Games.

�We are delighted that we were able to support and pre-popularize BBC world service entertainment content in its attempt to seek monetization in the metro markets .The time has come where they have found a paying customer and so we are discontinuing the free to air BBC entertainment capsules as agreed earlier. We continue to be a joint venture company with BBC worldwide and will help the BBC brand in any manner where they may need support in India. We look forward to the day when news opens up on private FM and Radio One and BBC worldwide will play a crucial role together in the news space said, Vineet Singh Hukmani, Managing Director, Radio One 94.3 FM.

Content syndication models operate on two platforms, which is either a straight sale or a revenue sharing. In the revenue share model, the revenue comes from a prospective brand sponsor so finding the right long term brand fit is most crucial. On the straight sale model a broadcaster buys syndicated content with the hope of increasing listener interest and the value of the content is directly related to the listener ratings it can generate. Most FM stations themselves in the future would look at using content syndication as an alternate revenue stream so the content syndication market is likely to become very competitive, maintains the company.