Back on-air!

I havent written here since I went back on-air. Yes. I am back to radio.
Good / Bad - God knows.

So the show is called Radio Magazine and it's a two hour show. Content is all and more that you can find in a magazine. and this one has no genre ... so even more diverse.

Looking at the medium from within one more time.. It's been a year and thought I'd reconnect. 

It is interesting stuff. I'm doing content that I haven't had the chance to do earlier. It's topical and it is not brain dead. It's not just frivolous Bollywood, but celebrating the city and its people.  Content ranges from art, movies, stage, Fitness, Food and travel. 

The only challenge is where do I fit as a personality? How do I make parts of my personality shine out? Here content is king. 

Which brings us back to.. How important is this 'personality'? The truth is I've always been a very curious personality.. Love meeting people and sharing stories and that's what I'm doing here. 

Bangalore as a city also lends itself to this kind of a show. It deserves to be explored and spoken to & about. I hope I'm doing that justice and people are enjoying that kind of content. 

Getting some air - on-air

Listening to Purani Jeans on Radio Mirchi via gaana.com has been a happy habit I am developing while working. What I do like the most about it is the absence of radio jockeys. There are shows with jocks as well and frankly I switch off when those begin. Nothing wrong with the jocks -but love listening to my songs back to back with no bak-bak. Not to mention - No ADS!

I have been wondering how right or wrong that is though. I have been an advocate of the 'human touch' on-air. It is the main reason why people still tune in regularly and not their ipods / USB drive full of songs. I mean.. among other things:
- Latest songs (which are available on youtube, but then you have to go online, click on it = effort)
- Surprise element - which is such a unique feature. The listener does not know which song will follow which one and when you play song that keeps him / her happy one after another - they stay tuned. These happy surprises are difficult to come by even if you put your device on 'shuffle'.
- Then there is the pre-produced content - which adds humour or information to your day - on the go.

But then I believe that all this is tied together by the radio personality. Dan O Day says that it is the personality's job to keep the listener on the station once they are tuned in. For example, listening to the same song over and over again can get more and more interesting every time - if the RJ has the talent to make it sound so...Also, I strongly believe that an RJ has to ADD VALUE to the listener's life.

However, with our FM stations getting crowded with pre-produced capsules,ads and ineffective jock talk - I am finding it very difficult to back my own argument. Otherwise - we are good. gaana.com is a-okay.

Show me some Love..

So I met a radio station again (in Bangalore) – in the hope to be part of a radio station once more, but it did not work out. Mainly because I can’t devalue myself and they can’t increase their budgets. However, I always look at these meetings as ways of interacting with other radio enthusiasts and share experiences and love for the medium.

A very interesting conversation with a gentleman who has spent many years in the industry, gave me a new perspective of looking at things. We were talking about the mediocrity of the talent and content on-air and how both of us saw a lot of scope for improvement. However, he mentioned that what looks mediocre to us, is actually working. The only thing that sales and marketing work with are RAM numbers and they are looking good. These kids on-air are actually throwing up numbers and that’s all that matters. More so, he questioned our judgement. May be, just maybe, we are not in touch with the listening populace’s tastes. I was speechless. Yes, the RAM cannot be trusted a 100% and all the radio experts have been crying out loud to change the system. However, what if this is what the people like and we are refusing to believe it?

However, I have seen that in more competitive markets like Delhi and Mumbai, the content and talent is better. So I can’t buy into that argument in these cities...not that it’s superlative either.

There are several ways of looking at this then –

•        This is mediocre radio and people have just not tasted better.. so they like what they get.
•        RAM is bullshit
•        Definition of good radio has changed

It could also be the case that good talent is asking for more money and radio stations don’t want to spend in smaller centres. (totally being narcissistic here)  But I was young once and was not paid so much and was trained well enough to be able to put up decent shows. (Thanks Vera) So is it that people are just not trained well enough or not guided with all the attention required?

At one point, we knew radio to be an unforgiving medium. You say one word wrong, one name of street wrong, pronounce a name wrong and get brickbats for it; within team and also from listeners. I have faced it as well. I still cringe when I hear any of these...and they are increasing by the day. So when I was concluding this conversation (with the gentleman I referred to earlier) – I only said one thing... yes, may be its not as bad as I listen it to be.. but basic hygiene cannot be compromised. It’s unfair to the medium. The medium that has its origins in stations like AIR – the only source of information, news, learning, music, entertainment and connectivity for a large population of India. Not a single word uttered on-air could be taken lightly. The people on-air were sources of learning as well. The language used – whether English, Hindi or regional was pure, unadulterated and sacred. You just could not afford to mess up. The spoken word was given a pedestal which was not compromised. Let’s just say if you had an argument over how a particular word is pronounced, you did not have Google to go to – you just trusted the radio presenter.

Yes, times have changed. People’s choice of entertainment fluctuates and radio is definitely not consumed as vociferously as TV and social media. But that does not mean we don’t take ourselves seriously...or let down the medium. It has stood the test of time and I am sure it will in the coming years as well. So why can’t we take it upon ourselves to just aim a little higher than mediocre / acceptable.

To begin charity at home, I have taken it upon myself to train students of media in Radio and share my experience with them. May be if the love and passion is stirred in them, they will be able to bring more to the table in the years to come.Excuse me for over simplifying things, but I feel that is what drives this medium – love, passion, energy.

Pitfalls of Interstitials

An interstitial space or interstice is an empty space or gap between spaces full of structure or matter. - Wiki

Now, this is what we used to call all those 'fillers' that you hear between songs and ads in programming and I hope they still have the same connotation in Radio. These are pre-produced (non-live) and have a certain production value. My earliest memory of this type of programming is Babbar Sher I think. Before that, we just had city updates or news (in Dubai) - which too were done live. So they don't fall in the same category.
From there to now, I feel we need to start questioning the very need for these over-produced, nationally relayed pieces of slapstick humour shared every half an hour or TOH.
Most of the stuff that we hear on air - from Sultan's Classes to Fake Interviews (with overly annoying voice) to Actor calling Actor, Bollywood Bassappa to Samaanta - is over populating my mind space and overwhelming my senses. It is important to just take a step back and try and figure out if it's helping anyone's cause. Why I am questioning it:

1. It's not local. I know syndicated shows and centrally relayed programming is the new mantra for big station networks - but radio is a local medium. Let's get the basics right.

2. Radio's first duty as a medium (at least in a market like India) is to deliver music. This eats up my music time. (this applies all the more in the prime time slots where ads are anyway taking up 20 mins / hour)

3. Multiple Personality Disorder.. that's what I feel most of the stations are going through - except may be RadioCity that has stuck with one pre-produced capsule since forever and that has helped build their identity. (Babbar Sher) If you have more than 2 pre-produced capsules running at the same time, it's only adding to the chaos. There is only so much I can retain - jock names, station names, show names and now even these characters and their idiosyncrasies.

4. Why are you screaming at me? Radio works best when it is my best companion... every production piece today sounds like they are scolding me. Can we re-look at the characters (read caricatures) we put on air?

5. Yes, this helps break the clutter and showcase talent in a different light; but then it has to be worthy of air-space every single day - above average - for me to give it the airtime specially if it's more than 30 secs of it!

6. Is jokes the only way of entertainment? And if they are just that - jokes - why do they need so much production work? Ask the jock to say the joke for all I care or then remove the links.

7. Completely cut off from the rest of the programming: I have never heard jocks take up a particular interstitial and sell it / love it / talk about it / add value to it. It is the part of the show as long as it is on the log - if you are ignoring it, so am I as a listener.

8. Unfortunately, even TOH jingles and sweeps in between songs are now LONG sentences and over produced statements that play after every song in some stations.. do we realise that is also talk-time?


At the end of the day, if you are creating more noise in my life than entertainment, we have to re-evaluate the content and style. I come back to the beginning - "An interstitial space or interstice is an empty space or gap between spaces full of structure or matter..." - is there really a space that requires any filling?

Awaaz mein DUM nahi hai yaar..

I have been out of touch with Bollywood music lately. Though it is very relative; in my case, when I say out of touch it means I hear new Hindi songs once or twice a week instead of 5 times a day - which was the case when I was on-air. I don't even watch the music channels as much, not that they show music anymore anyway. Basically exposure is low. Whatever I hear, also does not excite me much to explore further.

But what I have noticed is that I am unable to recognise the singers and composers most of the times. If I like a song, I immediately want to know the music composer and singer. The TV channels take no responsibility to show us their names; they just show us the name of the producer or music label. (which I vehemently oppose) and the radio stations cant go beyond the movie name and the actor names, except if its Yo Yo Honey Singh or AR Rahman. Anyway coming back to my thought - I am unable to recognise since there are many new voices showing up, which is nice. I like. However very very few of them take me to another plane, mesmerize me or impress me. Most romantic songs are sounding the same and trying to put m to sleep, others - well want to make me dance, but I don't even feel like moving a finger. I am not trying to be over-critical. The thing is, I have heard better. What happened? 

Also, if there is more talent now than before, should we not have more variety? I was listening to the Latest Top 20 on one of the music streaming sites and I have two things to say - even with an average album like Highway - AR Rahman still outshines all other in that list and secondly, all songs can easily be put under two genres: Love or Party. Don't tell me that the indie scene will take care of variety in terms of themes and emotions - Hindi songs have delivered every emotion and every dimension of our lives has been captured through them since time immemorial.

Oh yes, one more thing - the singers. See, I am not saying you should sing like Mohd Rafi and all and neither am I saying you sing badly. But there is no strength in the voices of these new age singers. I was listening to Zehnaseeb from Haseen to Phasee and I realised that the song is delivering half of what it is capable of, simply because awaaz mein DUM nahi hai. There is no other word to describe that. Imagine KK, Shaan, Udit, Sonu singing that song? You know what I mean. While I write this I am listening to Kismat se tum humko milo ho from Pukaar. I rest my case.

Earlier even a crappy song in terms of arrangement or audio quality or mixing etc sounded sooo good since the singers just brought so much value to the table. and oh! The 'thehraav'... I am not even getting there. I think it's also the music directors to blame who have stopped approaching the awesome singers in lieu of Youtube stars. Once again, I have nothing against them, but... I mean... a Filmfare for Ayushmann Khurana - even he didn't approve of it much.