Indian Radio Coming of Age in Bay Area or Dying of Old Age ?

Since my last blog in Feb last year where I took the time to analyze the local radio station, plenty of you weighed in and most of you appreciated my thoroughness and objectivity. Since my last update, the radio scene in Bay Area has heated up and I cant believe that this day would come when there would be three radio stations competing for your ‘ear time’. This is great time for us consumers but I have to believe that this cant be good news for those running the channels and responsible for the bottom lines.

I am not sure if there are two or three Indian stations running in the Bay Area. I had heard some shows on an FM frequency but they seems to have gone away. The two prominent ones seem to be Desi 1170 which was the focus of my last blog and Radio Zindagi, the new AM station which has been operating for close to a year I think.

Since I am a casual listener I always get confused between which show is on which frequency and which RJ does which show. As I blog today, my apologies for jumbling these up into a single analysis.

My bottom line is that it is exciting to have two 24×7 radio stations focused on the Indian Subcontinent listeners, something unimaginable twenty or so years ago when I came here first. Having said this, I would also say that the overall quality still lacks significantly in terms of originality, presentation and engagement but it is not all doom and gloom as things are significantly better then ever before.

Here are some general comments on the programs I catch regularly. I listen to NPR for the most part but do flip to the two Indian stations. I enjoy the banter between Sid and Abhishek who are generally entertaining and fresh and keep things moving along at a nice pace. Their humor however leaves a lot to be desired as they are often flirting that fine line between decent and questionable stuff.  Once in a while I also catch the super drive show with Shreeja who seems to be back after a hiatus. She is pleasant and speaks well and I had rated her highly last time. The show lacks variety considering it is a daily show and how much variation can one bring. I think a good male co-host will add a lot to her show and could make this as a top drive time show across the two channels.

I have caught some day time shows but not much to write home about except the show that plays retro songs is nice. Other than that I hear some heavy accents and poorly produced shows which I could not care much about and I am invariably back to NPR or FM stations.

Evening time gets much better with some exceptions. Ritu who was on KLOK is back on Desi 1170 (which I think is the same station under a different management). She is upbeat  but unspectacular and plays decent songs. What follows her show is the ultimate in non sense, this is the Pam Pam show, the most pointless show ever whose hosts show up with no content. They depend on ‘caller generated content’ and callers have nothing interesting to add. The hosts call themselves Altu Faltu, an appropriate branding for this show.

Some of the other shows I have caught in the evenings are with Ayesha, Shalu, Uday, Rohit, Sameer, Saiba and a few others which are more entertaining most of the time. I enjoy Shalu’s humor and energy and her banter with her co-hosts is entertaining although her co-hosts overdo things a bit and are not very good. Jagruti, who I reviewed in the last blog is  lack luster and boring. She does have good content so it is best to listen to the songs she plays but not her. I enjoy Rohit’s casual show most of the time with some good songs and chemistry with the co-host who is also good. Another RJ I rated very high last time was Sameer and he continues to be impressive with an impressive voice and unparalleled content including some impressive celebrity interviewing. The show about movie reviews is below average and not very informative. Din Mani another interesting host who seems to have out lasted most others is a mystery to me, a good voice and an accent from another planet.

Last time I got a lot of feedback on my blog and I certainly hope it is taken in the right spirit this time. We as listeners can only hope that our comments only help improve the quality of the shows that blare on radio in our cars and ears. We are certainly thankful that there is an avenue for local business to promote themselves and keep us in touch with our culture.