Mumbai, September 26, 2006: With BIG 92.7FM all set to regale audiences across the country, the Station has designed a unique play list that is based on consumers choice rather than ‘perceived hits’.

Through the research initiatives carried out for the Music Testing across the 6 cities of Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Hyderabad and Bangalore, BIG 92.7FM has understood the pulse of a regular radio listener and reason that stop a non listener from tuning in.

With music being the key differentiator on BIG 92.7FM, the radio station is clearly eyeing the Adult Contemporary positioning not only to catch the beats of its listeners but also to find that instant connect with them.

As part of the research initiative, the first phase of Music Testing involved The Auditorium Music Test that was carried out on a strong sample size of over 10,000 respondents across the 6 metros. This brought forth the nuances of music preferences by gender and age. In the second phase, BIG 92.7FM created dummy play-lists consisting of hour long capsules of music and conducted blind tests with consumers across the 6 metros. Here too, consumers mostly preferred the play-lists designed by the research team, which will soon be heard on the Radio Station across the nation.

Speaking about the music differentiation on the new radio station Mr. Tarun Katial, COO, BIG 92.7FM said, “BIG 92.7FM will be a radio channel with a difference. Not only will our music content be unique but also the listeners will be treated to songs that they wish to here and not what are perceived
to be hits otherwise.

While Bollywood music is the most preferred in metros like Delhi and Mumbai, the play-list composition is what will differentiate BIG 92.7FM from other channels. Our thrust here has been to look not only at what current FM listeners want, but also at what FM non-listeners would like to hear on a FM channel.” added Mr. Katiyal.

Deepa Soman, CEO, Lumiere, the music research agency for BIG 92.7 FM reveals, “An interesting consistent finding showed that most people around the country found a need gap in the current radio programming as there was no religious slot early morning which they could turn on as a ritual habit. They would like a show which either plays bhajans or chants to start their day off. Likewise, many non listeners tend to prefer listening to their own collections of music instead of tuning into radio as they had more control of what they were hearing. Most of these habitually preferred to hear entire albums of their favourite artists and therefore, dedicated slots on one artist eg: Rafi, Lata Mangeshkar etc. are the way to motivate this non listening community to tune in.”

BIG 92.7 FM will be airing shows to cater to both these needs and more. Added to which, as per an internal estimate, 40% of BIG 92.7 FM’s Music Play-list will be unique and not heard before on other FM stations. Differentiation being a key mantra for any media channel, the music on BIG 92.7 FM is all set to do just that especially for its listeners.