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<ul><li>With a relaunch in UAE earlier this year, followed by launches in Qatar and Bahrain, Mirchi is now present in 4 countries outside of India. </li><li>Mirchi aims to continue its expansion spree. </li></ul>Mirchi fortifies its presence in USA with the launch of its operations in the Bay Area, California. In line with its vision to expand its global footprint and cater to the South Asian diaspora across markets, Mirchi aims to introduce its <keyword id="12905" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Radio">Radio</keyword>, Digital and LIVE Events solutions to the city. With South Asians accounting for almost half a million of the total population in the Bay Area, there is a significant demand for Hindi music and Bollywood content. Catering to the needs of this vast pool of consumers, Mirchi will be bringing the best of Bollywood content along with local updates relevant to the target audience. Mirchi will bring popular and exclusive content like the ‘Mirchi Top 20 Countdown’, ‘Club Mirchi’, ‘What Women Want’ with Kareena Kapoor Khan, ‘Bhatt Naturally’ with Mahesh Bhatt and Pooja Bhatt, ‘The Karan Johar Show’ along with other elements like ‘Mirchi Murga’ with <keyword id="12071" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="RJ-Naved">RJ Naved</keyword>, ‘Purani Jeans’ with RJ Sayema etc. Moreover, the brand will share its digital content and curate on ground events, thereby further solidifying its engagement with the audience. In line with Mirchi’s rapidly growing digital and brand solutions businesses, this launch provides for an ideal outlet for national and local advertisers to reach a specific target audience in the Bay Area. Commenting on the launch, <keyword id="6630520" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Prashant-Panday">Prashant Panday</keyword>, MD &amp; CEO of Mirchi said, “Mirchi has been No. 1 player in the Indian market for almost two decades now. In addition to radio, we have grown a successful Solutions business. After expanding our footprint in UAE, Qatar, Bahrain and New Jersey, we are excited to enter the dynamic market of the Bay Area. We look forward to bringing the best of Mirchi for the South Asian and Indian diaspora across these markets.” “The global entertainment market holds immense potential and North America, especially The Bay Area, is a market with a lot of demand for Hindi music and Bollywood content. Thus, leveraging Mirchi’s brand equity, strengths, and unparalleled content library, we look forward to catering to this demand and engaging with our target audience,” adds <keyword id="11570114" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="manoj-mathan">Manoj Mathan</keyword>, Head of International Markets, Mirchi. With a relaunch in UAE earlier this year, followed by launches in Qatar and Bahrain, Mirchi is now present in 4 countries outside of India, including the USA, with plans to expand to more countries.

Mirchi forays into North America with its launch in The Bay Area, California

<ul><li><keyword id="9734" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Radio-Mirchi">Radio Mirchi</keyword>, that rebranded itself in late 2020, has now announced that it is expanding its presence to three international markets. </li><li>We reached out to Prashant Panday, MD and CEO, ENIL to understand what the platform has in store. </li></ul>Around the end of 2020, <keyword id="394582" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="Entertainment-Network-India">Entertainment Network India</keyword> Ltd (ENIL) announced that it is rebranding Radio Mirchi to Mirchi, with the aim of depicting the evolution that the brand had gone through in the last few years. Less than four months later, Mirchi is now spreading its wings wider and expanding to three key markets in the Middle East - Dubai, Qatar, and Bahrain. Mirchi has already had some experience in two of these markets and the organization’s goal is to become not just the listener’s favorite there but the advertisers’ favorite too. We caught up with Prashant Panday, MD and CEO, ENIL, who will be spearheading Mirchi’s international foray and tried to understand all that he has planned for these three exciting markets. Excerpts: Q. You are entering 3 major MENA markets in the next few months. How different are your strategies going to be for these 3 markets? The MENA markets are very rich. Almost everyone there has a car, and we know that radio listenership is the highest in cars. Each of these three markets has a high population of South Asians. In two of them, Mirchi has existed in the past, and very successfully at that. In that sense, there is an already existent listenership craving for Mirchi. From an advertising angle, most of these markets are at present mostly radio-FCT/radio-innovation markets. That being said, it will be our endeavor to offer the whole line of our “Solutions” products that we offer to the advertisers in India. I think advertisers love solutions and there is no reason why the MENA advertisers won’t! Q. Why were these three markets in the MENA region your choice? Any expansion in the radio space has to depend on availability of frequencies. It so happens that we got frequencies in these markets and hence, are launching here first. In the UAE, we are partnering with a committed and well-entrenched, existing radio player – Suno FM – and entering the market by rebranding it to Radio Mirchi. In Qatar, we have partnered with another committed local player – One FM – and launched MirchiOne. In Bahrain, we won the frequency through the Government auction that happened before the pandemic began. Here, we are launching our own operation. Q. What will your content strategy look like for these three markets? Will it be primarily aimed at the Indian diaspora there or will it have a local play too? In MENA, and even in other international markets, we look at the larger South Asian population as our target audience. From a language and culture perspective, and from an entertainment and music consumption perspective, there are lot of similarities between Indians, Pakistanis, Nepalese and even Bangladeshis. Sri Lankans also love Indian music, so they are also within our sight. In all of these markets, the promise of Mirchi is that, being India’s biggest FM broadcaster, we will bring the best in entertainment and music. Our deep connects with the film and music fraternity ensures that we have access to Bollywood content on tap, including access to the top celebrities. The MENA region is of great important to the film and music industry, and so our partnership with them in MENA will be a strong one. Apart from this, we will be happy to bring the news from South Asia to our listeners, and arouse memories of “back home” in them! Having said all this, the core of any radio product is always local in nature. So the bulk of the content will be local in nature. Local issues, traffic, weather, festivals, shopping etc. will form the mainstay of the product. Q. You were present in Dubai till last year. What made you pull out of the country, and how different will your offering there be now? Our agreement with our erstwhile partners concluded. We, therefore, withdrew the brand from the market. Now, after 9 months, we are entering the country again! There is going to be a huge difference in the content as well as its treatment this time around. Last time, our entire programming team was based in Abu Dhabi, and so the content was created primarily for that emirate. Of course our signals covered Dubai as well. This time, our content will be tailor made for Dubai. It will be far more local and relevant for people of Dubai. Of course, the signals will travel to Abu Dhabi and to other emirates as well. Furthermore, our local research indicates that people are yearning for many of our popular“sparklers” like “Murga”, “What the Farhan” and “Sud”. We will therefore be re-launching them soon. Then there are so many other strong programming IPs that we will bring to the UAE. The music will largely be contemporary, and will be wider than what we play in India. There will also be shows that we will carry from India to all MENA markets. Very importantly, and this is different from our earlier presence, we will be bringing a lot more Hindi films to Dubai for their promotion. This will offer us great opportunity for local content, and for our listeners to engage with film and music celebrities, in person. Q. What are your launch plans? What media are you going to use to talk to audiences in these markets? In the UAE, we have extensive launch activities planned. We are doing extensive digital campaigns, but most importantly, we are also launching an aggressive print campaign. In the other markets, the biggest medium really is radio itself, and with the word of mouth that already exists, our effort will be to tap the audience through digital platforms, contests and on-ground activations. Q. What kind of advertiser response have you seen in these markets? In Qatar, we have had a huge response to our product! In fact, we’ve got sponsorship orders prior to our launch. From the start we’ve got, it looks like we’re on track to achieving our annual target. The UAE is a far more competitive market, so we want to launch our product first, and then approach advertisers. We know that the response will be terrific! In Bahrain, the launch is a month away; but we are already getting feelers from advertisers there! Equally, there is a lot of interest in India based advertisers, all of whom target the Middle East. We are now going to encourage them to “Add Dubai and Doha and Bahrain to your plans just as you add Delhi and Mumbai”. For the first time, we are in a position to offer India-based advertisers a ‘network’ in the Middle East. Q. What are your expectations from Qatar and Bahrain given that they are new markets for Mirchi? We’re not entirely new to Bahrain! We were already present there as a brand till some time back; but in a partnership with a local player. So it’s a re-launch there! In Qatar, however, we are new. In both these markets, there is a huge entertainment gap and we will endeavor to fill that. We will offer not just our radio product, but also our video and on-ground LIVE entertainment products. Qatar is going to host the football world cup in 2022, and that’s going to create a huge amount of travel from India. The buzz around football is usually so high that the whole advertising ecosystem gets a big boost. We hope to capitalize on that as well. In Bahrain, we have a 5-year contract from the Kingdom of Bahrain. We will therefore, need to be very efficient in our operations. Fortunately, we have a strong leadership team in ENIL, and many of our key managers are getting a good opportunity to prove themselves in these exciting markets! Q. You rebranded around 6 months back. How has the reception been so far, both from listeners and advertisers? We are doing exceptionally well in our Solutions business, despite our radio business being hit by COVID-19. Our Digital solutions are especially doing very well. Thanks to the pandemic, digital products have got a big leg up and we’ve benefitted from that. The other solutions product that has done very well is the TV solutions. I am so proud to share with you that despite the pandemic and despite no other award shows happening in this quarter, the Mirchi Music Awards happened in as pompous a style as always! It was broadcasted on 28th March, on Colors. We have also successfully completed the Mirchi Music Awards in Marathi, Tamil, Telegu, Kannada, Malayalam and Bangla. Likewise we have successfully completed the Mirchi Cover Star, the music talenthunt competition. The winner of the Mirchi Cover Star got to perform on TV during the Mirchi Music Awards. Except for TV solutions, the rest of our on-ground solutions (Live solutions) got almost completely derailed because of COVID. However, even within this space, we innovated and created new products like online R&amp;R (Rewards and Recognition) events and online concerts for our corporate clients. Q. What more can we expect from Mirchi in the next few months? You can expect a lot of action on the digital side. We will soon be revamping our website and making a big push there. We will also be expanding our online radio stations. Our YouTube channels are growing rapidly; and with more content that we will make, we hope to expand that substantially too. We have big plans in our Original Content space– web series and individual sketches. We are also looking at making a play in the podcast space, on the platform side in addition to the content side. In addition to this, we are also evaluating new business opportunities beyond what we have already entered, opportunities that mix the power of digital technology with our content/film relationship strengths. In the next few years, we expect our solutions business (digital, TV, Live) to grow rapidly. During this time, we also expect radio to do a recovery, with growth rates stabilizing in the high single digits. Q. In India, what will your growth strategy be in the next year? Where will your next phase of growth come from? Our 5-year strategy is built on growing our solutions business rapidly, and also stabilizing our radio business. In the next few years, I expect both to grow. However, with solutions growing faster, the share of solutions could become about 50%. Our solutions business has been generating high operating margins; so that should boost our EBITDA too. I expect FY22 to remain tough, given the COVID conditions. That being said, I expect strong growth prospects from FY23 onwards.

For the first time, we are in a position to offer India-based advertisers a ‘network’ in the Middle East: Prashant Panday, ENIL

<ul><li>As we enter a brand new year, we want to crystal gaze into what the year holds for us.</li><li>In today's feature, experts from the <keyword id="12905" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Radio">radio</keyword> industry tell us a few big trends we need to watch out for in 2021.</li></ul>We have finally left 2020, one of the most difficult years we have faced collectively in recent times, behind. It was a year that affected businesses, lives, markets, and the world in general. And it obviously had an impact on the media and entertainment industry too. While it affected almost all media platforms, it affected some mediums more than others. Traditional mediums like Print, OOH, Experiential and Radio bore the brunt. With advertisers stopping most of their marketing activities, especially in the first few months, AdEx witnessed a major dip. Specifically Radio as a medium is largely dependent on <keyword id="3381059" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="retail-advertising">retail advertising</keyword> and when retail saw a complete shutdown, the medium suffered too as advertisers pulled back on ads. Many radio players had to cut salaries and rationalize manpower. However, according to most experts from the industry, it was also a great teacher. It taught the industry to innovate and efficiently reduce cost, that they feel will come handy for organizations in the future too. Now, with things slowly getting back on track, most leaders are excited about 2021. We spoke to a few of them to understand what to expect from the upcoming year, and the trends that we should look out for in the Radio industry. Here’s what they had to say: <keyword id="295639" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Abraham-Thomas">Abraham Thomas</keyword>, CEO, <keyword id="694101" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Reliance-Broadcast-Network-Limited">Reliance Broadcast Network Limited</keyword> <div type="image" title="Abe" msid="80041608" hostid="261"></div> The year 2020 has surely been a great teacher as it enabled us to broaden our horizon and explore possibilities like never before. Radio has been re-imagined in the minds of the listeners and its transformation into a complete audio entertainment platform has been a stellar one. For 2021, we see the medium seamlessly integrating digitization further and taking massive strides as the emergence of audio will take precedence across all innovations. This year, the advancements of digitization enabled radio networks to build a holistic audio entertainment experience for listeners as well as for brands to leverage. For the coming year, we are certain that there will be an expansion in the audio space with radio further venturing into avenues that harnesses the power of the medium. The changing landscape of consumer behaviour presented us, at <keyword id="82551" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Big-FM">BIG FM</keyword>, with opportunities and we established ourselves as an audio entertainment player. After the launch of our web radio platform Big Radio Online this year, we are strategically advancing into a myriad of avenues such as gamification, chat bots, social commerce and many others. This will enable us to present an immersive experience and also a deeper level of engagement with various stakeholders. We see this dominating the innovations and leading the trend for next year. These avenues will further integrate radio into becoming a one-stop audio entertainment destination. Radio as a medium has constantly reinvented itself, is in line with the evolving times and will continue to expand its wings and dominate the audio content space in the year to come. <keyword id="6630520" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Prashant-Panday">Prashant Panday</keyword>, MD &amp; CEO, MIRCHI <div type="image" title="DSC_9512" msid="80041548" hostid="261"></div> “The pandemic has hit the business of every advertiser. It has increased the risks for them. In 2021, and in years further ahead, advertisers will want to reduce risks associated with media buying. To this end, they will demand more “solutions” to their marketing challenges from their media partners. They will scale back on pure media buying, and put more monies on solutions. Media companies will have to add marketing and creative people to their teams, who can understand the challenges of advertisers, and develop solutions accordingly. Media companies will move towards becoming marketing consultancies, though they will not directly compete with advertising agencies. Media companies will extend the brand messaging that ad agencies create through innovative last-mile adaptations. In order to do this, media companies will have to develop a suite of products, very different from their core product. Mirchi for instance, has developed digital products that include original video content, other videos, online radio, and audio solutions using the plain old telephone system. We have also developed a suite for on-ground and on-TV IPs like the Mirchi Music Awards, the Mirchi Cover Stars and the Mirchi Neon Run. Such products will give advertisers an opportunity to reach their target audiences more predictably and efficiently.” <keyword id="3148434" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Ashit-Kukian">Ashit Kukian</keyword>, CEO, Radio City <div type="image" title="Mr. Ashit Kukian, CEO, Radio City" msid="80041566" hostid="261"></div> Radio has always been one of the most trusted and reliable media, more so in this year. We saw an increase in listenership during the lockdown, contrary to the belief that the consumption would dip as people stopped traveling. A trend we noticed this year and forecast for 2021 would be growth in radio, in terms of listenership and business from the Tier2 and Tier 3 markets. With increase in 5G penetrationand consumption shiftby brands to advertise more in Tier 2 &amp; Tier 3 markets. Categories like e-commerce, OTT platforms , FMCG &amp; Retail would like to leverage these markets. Due to radio's reach and accessibility, these brands will look at advertising their messaging on radio to leverage a wider audience. Also, radio is one of the most effective medium that disseminates credible content and any brand in the current situation wants to be associated with a medium that communicates their message in a positive manner. This will in turn help the radio industry increase its revenue and eventually come out of the woods stronger.

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Mirchi forays into North America with its launch in The Bay Area, California

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For the first time, we are in a position to offer India-based advertisers a ‘network’ in the Middle East: Prashant Panday, ENIL

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Radio: Trends to watch out for in 2021

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