MUMBAI: Radio ONE 94.3FM grew 82% over the corresponding quarter last year in its 6 operating cities.- Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Pune, Chennai and Ahmedabad. The industry at the level of these 6 cities grew 31% over last year as per available estimates.

When contacted, Vineet Singh Hukmani, CEO Radio ONE , said ' We had set a very ambitious growth target for ourselves and with the spirited team we have and our metro focus guiding us, we have crossed the first hurdle and are well poised to break further records in the coming quarters.
We have segmented ourselves as a metro innovator. Clients and agencies have accepted that and the business we are getting is because of that.
We concentrate on a mass-tige metro city attitude audience and we don't charge for the spill-over into non relevant crass mass audiences which makes us offer the highest value.
Our revenue to cost ratio is one of the healthiest in the industry thanks to our desire to focus on the metros
Our focus on making product excellent before we now start to build brand is helping our over all yield situation.
A truly de-centralized structure has increased our speed to market like never before.
As the radio industry awaits the 3rd phase of licensing and looks to expand further, Radio ONE has decided to continue and focus on metro city consolidation rather than geographical expansion.

'You see we rather be focused versus being a generalist and our game plan is very different from the 'reach brands. We believe that a cake is liked because of its taste and not it's size and therefore we want to be loved by a metro audience and the advertiser who wants to impact them' said Vineet on being asked about future plans.

On whether the industry was poised for real differentiation versus just a perceptual game¦'Creativity is about taking calculated chances. We have started to take them and they are paying rich dividends. We have enough examples to show how we have already started to push the envelope' said Vehrnon Ibrahim, National Programming head. The radio industry is maturing faster in the metros than in the small towns and this poses a challenge for companies who need to wear 2 hats to be able to focus on this situation, Vehrnon added.

"We see the metros getting saturated sooner than later with the current content and format principles. It is only a matter of time before the government sees the need for format licensing in the metros to bring in worthy differentiation and true loyalty to the various genres that can exist in this medium. Having said that we have a lot of creativity up our sleeves which the listener is going to enjoy, concluded Vineet.

It looks like in the short term, growth is evident from the metro cities. The long term will tell how the industry faces the challenges of geographical expansion & loyalty and what strategy each player is likely to adopt to take advantage of a rapidly growing industry.