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. 

Can I go on-air in Bangalore?

My friends in America have been tuning into City1016 since a long long time and swear by it. It's the only one I know that broadcasts the same content they do on radio - also online. So while they sit in America, they are listening to radio of Dubai  - with content about another city / country etc - but seem totally ok with it! So why do people keep talking about local content, importance of the city or town or whats happening around them?

When I shifted to Bangalore, of course I met people here in the radio industry. I wanted to check out the possibilities. But when I thought of going on-air, I double checked with myself. I could have done it easily since I have done it before and it comes naturally to me. But should I do it? It bothered me that I did not know the city well enough. In fact, what if I pronounced the area name wrong while giving a traffic update? Marathalli is pronounced differently even by locals here. What is KR Market? what is sold there? - later get to know its kind of like Crawford Market - but have I been there? Have I had the coffee at Brahmin Coffee Bar? And I decided, its just not fair. It is unethical to go on-air with half baked information and just faff around about how great Bangalore is and how lovely the weather is.

When I was in Mumbai, I saw a lot of these RJs who were from various parts of the country - and somehow never thought of this then. People from Delhi, Jaipur and Raipur - could easily get away with a 'kasa kay' or a 'bhidu' - which is ok. Also, Mumbai as a city is very cosmopolitan. It does not belong to anyone or any particular language is not spoken there. It is also very tolerant. Oh my, before I get emotional over the city - what I am trying to say is that the profession of a Radio Presenter needs to be given more respect and due credit.

As of today, we are happy yapping about anything from silly Bollywood gossip (I wanted to give an example but thankfully I am totally out of touch and have no clue whats going on in that world) to stupid contests with even stupid-er give-aways. I was frankly not ready to do the same thing again. When I began doing radio - this is not what it was about. It was about your spontaneity, language, love for music, love for the people, wit, humour and personality. YOUR personality - not something you make up for 4 hours of the day. It was about connecting with the people in your city. It was all about the company. It was about going ga-ga about the poha sold outside Vikhroli station, the sea breeze at Bandra Bandstand (and the couples enjoying it).

But then, if I only have to talk about Ranbir's next movie and Preity Zinta's third dimple - I think I can do it anywhere in the world. I really don't need to belong to the city. But my question is - if you don't belong anywhere, how would you make the listeners get a sense of belonging?

As for, can a jock be from another city.. I haven't made up my mind about it. I have given myself 2 years to know the place and the people before I even think about going on-air in Bangalore. Wasted my time? May be. Worth the wait? Will only know if someone offers me the mike again ;)  Getting to know the city - Priceless.

Baby When You're Gone..

'The TV is on coz the radio is playing songs that remind me of you.. Baby when you're gone, I realise I am in love'.
-Bryan Adams song that I want to dedicate to my mike.

I've always spoken about my jobs in radio as love affairs. When I started off with WIN 94.6 - it was my first crush, the Red FM job after that was just a short fling, then Dubai happened, which was clearly a mistake (but has its sweet memories to last), followed by Fever FM - which clearly was my one committed two-and-a-half year long relationship and hurt like crazy to break up with it. (could actually feel my heart break inside of me when I hit 'send' on my resignation letter) ... but it was time I stopped allowing it to take me for granted.. if you know what I mean. Took me half a year to get over that. In fact, I took a break from radio after that...like one purposely stays away from getting involved with anyone after a break-up. Big fm was a relationship that begun with the head making the choice, but the heart grew in, though I never let it take over me completely.

May be that's the reason I could walk away from my first love all over - to make way for a 'real' relationship this time. I even shifted cities. But I guess, this time round, the mike is testing me and may be even punishing me for leaving it (and my show on a high note) It's acting all elusive. But I too have to make up my mind as to what I want from this relationship now - I am still unsure.

So this song is just to let you know baby, that I am still in love. Do call me sometime.