To stay in tune, or take a different pitch?

Will the proliferation of services serve different clusters of listeners, or continue the pattern of safe-else-sorry programming?

With the government selling a total of 279 FM stations, can radio listeners finally look forward to being able to make discriminating choices based on differentiated content? Unfortunately the word around town is: "Not yet, anyway."

Rajesh Tahil, CEO, Radio id Day West that operates Go FM in Mumbai and won 16 additional licenses, negates the possibility of niche programming.

"There will be no niche programming until we are permitted to operate more than one channel per city. If my channel is my only one in the city, why should I run a jazz station and die the death of a pauper. We have to accept that niche channels are a function of the audience and not the licensing system."

For now all that Go listeners can hold out hope to is the possibility of the station sharing content with BBC Worldwide, which recently picked up a 17.5 per cent stake in Radio Mid-Day West. "If relevant, content sharing is something we're looking into," says Tahil.

Six months ago, Red FM, unveiled a new programming approach, transforming themselves into a "hit" radio station. "With the help of a quarterly listener ranking system we have narrowed our playlist so every song played on Red is a hit song," says Abraham Thomas, CEO, Red FM, which will operate out of 10 cities.

According to Thomas, until the veracity of radio listenership data is proved, marketing gimmicks and not music programming will be the real differentiation between channels. "What we will see is increased spending on promotions," he remarks.

His words proved prophetic. Last week Radio City unveiled a new brand campaign "" "City mein kho jao". Explains Apurva Purohit, CEO, Radio City, "When competition is at your door, you naturally look for different ways to distinguish yourself. We've had a certain brand image which we wanted to improve upon, so we've taken our tagline from inducing trial generation to a stage of more involvement."

Purohit believes Radio City will be recognised for taking the localisation route in the 18 cities they will be present in.

Few new operators are talking programming yet. BAG films, with 10 winning bids, claims it's too busy dealing with paperwork to strategise yet.

Anil Ambani's Adlabs echoes that. TV 9, that will operate frequencies in Andhra Pradesh, plans to synergise its TV and radio operations, whether in content or in advertising models.

M K V N Murthy, vice president, TV9 adds, "Ultimately though, we believe there will be a market for original radio music content sourced from local providers, just like there is a market for remix videos made exclusively for television."

Sanjay Aggarwal, head of radio operations, Pan India Network, promoted by Zee that has won eight licenses for B class cities in Maharashtra and the north, says their programming will revolve around regional language fare; Hindi and Bhojpuri in UP, Hindi and Punjabi in Punjab, and Marathi and Hindi in Maharashtra.

According to Thomas, "Language will be one of the slots pan-India operators will try to capture as fast as they can."

One FM frequency that is showing signs of breaking out of the mould is Radio Indigo, part of BPL Innovision business group, that won the Bangalore license in Phase II of bidding.

A spokesperson for Radio Indigo, which was a driver station on WorldSpace radio network for four years, said, "Radio Indigo will continue its legacy of catering to the international city of Bangalore and provide an international radio experience." Now if that means it will be the first all-English music channel or not remains to be seen.

N P Sathyamurthy, chief planning officer, Carat Media Services, says, "As is the case with TV, radio channels will cater to clusters of audiences, though it may take a couple of years. When creative content truly arrives, advertisers will begin to take the platform seriously and "pen for the ears", not just "adapt" TV commercials to radio jingles."

For now, everyone is playing the wait-and-watch game. There may not be a first move advantage in this case.