Dawn of a new era? . Review on Radio Mirchi

This is about the not so new FM radio channel ''Radio Mirchi'' introduced in Pune (a city in western maharashtra India) about a year back. This was a brilliant and much awaited market move by the Tata group. It is the first FM channel of its kind in a city filled with music lovers.

Since its launch Radio Mirchi has breathed life into the dying radio market and has brought listening to the radio back in vogue. Gone are the days of the prim and proper RJs of AIR . ''Bhule bhisre'' geet is now a thing of the past. Radio mirchi is all about the hip, the young, the happening. No ''propah'' english or ''shudh'' hindi. Its all about hinglish and tapoori hindi and colloquial marathi. They've done a good job of reaching out to the masses. The music aired is excellent (both english and hindi). As the first FM channel in pune they've done a great job and thanks to them driving to work or being home on a sunday is more fun. But (isn't there always one :) ) alas! the RJs are a ''earsore''. Their voices are good but their humour(?) sucks and they all almost always illtime their punchlines(if there are any). The scripts are weak causing the Rjs to fall back to saying their names and ''this is radio mirchi ..its hot'' at the most in -appropriate of times.

Their jingles can do with the a revamp too. They should give more credit to the listeners sense of humour. They should also use their being such a powerful mass medium to educate people about social issues like cleanliness, avoidance of plastics, traffic rules... etc. This would make a great impact on the people as everyone right from the humble shoemaker to the man in the mercedes is listening to them at some point of the day or other. Not that they haven't touched upon social issues at all but somehow they turn such issues into voting contests with predefined answers wherein the people dial in to choose one of the solutions specified by the channel.

These solutions more often than not end up mocking the issue at hand rather than tuning in people to its seriousness. All in all its been an experience and its been good.