"We Will be larger than AIR by end of this year”

IIPM, GURGAON

The confident Prashant Pandey, CEO, Radio Mirchi, thinks advertising on radio can grow four times in the next five years. And Mirchi will become the country’s largest radio player

In 2007, the Indian radio space buzzed. As players like Big 92.7 FM and SUN FM entered the market, questions were raised on the non-expansive strategies of pioneers like Radio Mirchi. But Mirchi’s tale has a twist. It doesn’t believe in increasing the number of stations at the cost of revenues and shareholders’ returns. But despite competition, Mirchi is the largest private FM player (in terms of revenues) in the country with a pompous 45% market share in the private FM space. Mirchi is “above most TV channels, barring a few” and, in 2008, it expects to outshine AIR. 4Ps B&M’s PALLAVI SRIVASTAVA met Prashant Pandey, CEO, Radio Mirchi, to find out how he hopes to achieve this objective.

How do you see Radio Mirchi as a brand?

Mirchi is a very strong brand in the country. It is a sunshine brand and that’s why when listeners tune in to Radio Mirchi, they immediately are in a pep mood. In fact, we find demand for Mirchi in the global market among overseas Indians. So, we are looking at taking Mirchi global. However, we haven’t decided any timeline, or a strategy for that. It’s just a thought.

What are the plans for Mirchi in 2008?

We will look at participating in the future expansion of radio in India. In some small way, we will participate in the balance frequency of Phase II and may be, if there is Phase III, then we will certainly look at participating in that. But when I say expansion of radio, I don’t only mean increasing the number of stations. We will largely be working on growing the listenership in major markets. If you look at the market, you wll realise that there is a lot of uncovered ground. For example, in a city like Delhi or Bombay, there are 60-70 lakh listeners, but they can become a crore because of the density of population in such cities, and the fact that access to radio is not a problem. So, we will be primarily working at building the category in the major markets over the next year. We’re looking at growth this year, although last year witnessed a bit of turmoil due to competition. Of course, when competition comes in, existing operations get disturbed for some time. So, we look at the coming year as being one of significant growth in terms of revenues. We also expect the profit margins to rise.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2008

An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri and Arindam chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

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