MUMBAI: Five years ago, 9X entered uncharted territory -- the Marathi music channel space - with 9XJhakaas. The  aim  was to promote the Marathi music scene. Five years down, the channel appears to have succeeded in its quest and has now set a new goal for itself - promotion of non-film music. 

In conversation with Radioandmusic.com's Kavita Yadav, 9X Jhakaas programming head Ashwinikumar Patil talks about the channel's journey so far and its future plans. Excerpts. 

How have these five years been for 9X Jhakaas?

When 9X Jhakaas started in 2010, there were no Marathi music channels. Marathi music was just limited to stage shows and radio. The movies did not have a platform for music promotion. There was a vacuum, 9X Jhakaas filled it and the industry welcomed us in a big way.

The Marathi music space has more players now. Does that mean competition?

The market has opened up now. In fact, in two-three years after our launch, other channels started entering the space. But, we’ve positioned Jhakaas as a high visual quality music channel. We also have our animated characters that have been welcomed well. We are also more youth-centric. 

Do you only play songs that have high visual quality?

We wanted to set a parameter for ourselves. So, we decided that we would play a song only if it was good and rest of the channels followed us. We feel that a song needs to have the music and star value because viewing songs is all about the experience.

Jhakaas has also been associating with Marathi films.

Jhakaas has been doing different things and film tie-ups are one of those. In fact, everyone in the Marathi film industry wants to associate with Jhakaas. And we are working towards taking the Marathi industry further. We also have IPs like ‘Music Yatra’, under which we shoot on ground events from places like Pune and Satara and telecast them. We have been trying something new every year for our industry to grow.

Also read: A channel needs to have its own personality: Amar Tidke

What’s new this year?

Marathi film music has a platform now, but the non-film music is a challenge. We are looking at creating a platform for the new singers. So we will promote their albums and also work on new singles with Marathi independent artiste.

Is Jhakaas too socially active like rest of 9X Media channels?

We try building connect with the youth and they are on social platforms. In fact, we have got a lot of our show titles from social. Our show ‘Lai Bhari’ was a comment by one of the users on our social page. We also do a lot of Facebook live.

Where does 9 X Jhakaas want to see its self as a brand, in the coming years?

We are the number one Marathi music channel and we want to bring the ‘majha’ (mine) channel feel to it. We are looking at getting more into non-film music, music events and musical shows.