The secrets to making successful radio
As the world celebrates World Radio Day today, let’s have a look at what makes SAMAA FM 107.4 rule the airwaves.
For years Radio Pakistan and perhaps the BBC World Service were the only radio channels Pakistanis had to choose from. It was only in 1995 that the first private radio channel, FM 100, hit the airwaves and suddenly a new world opened up.
“Radio was revived when the first private channel opened and it was the only FM radio channel for a long time,” says Ayaz Abro, who heads SAMAA FM.
Then in 2001 other FM radio channels started to acquire licenses. In Karachi, SAMAA FM 107.4 was the last one to technically start operations, in 2012, and December 25, today, marks its eighth anniversary. No other commercial channels have come up since then; we’ve only seen the addition of community radio in the shape of campus channels and the traffic police station.
SAMAA FM beams out from six stations, in Karachi, Lahore Islamabad, Sialkot, Bahawalpur and Peshawar and its RJs are celebrities in their own right, from Sahir Lodhi to Adeel Azhar to Sulmeen Ansari and Sana Humayun.
Ayaz Abro talked about the magic ingredients for radio. “A good presenter’s kamal is that you feel they are talking directly to you, not a big audience,” he said. “Your way of talking has to not sound like you are addressing someone, but talking to them.” That intimacy between RJ and listener is what creates a fan base. In fact, when RJs leave radio stations and join new ones, it is said they take their listeners with them.
Another secret to good radio is knowing how to create a mix that doesn’t focus on any age group. You have to ensure there is something for all age brackets because you never know who is listening. This is quite a different approach to television, which has well-defined demographic slots: morning shows for the women at home, evening talk shows for the armchair philosopher uncles.
Abro, whose own voice has a barrel-scraping bass, cautions that you have to sound good to make it big on radio. A good voice is clear and sonorous. “Your voice’s weight determines how successful you are as a presenter,” he added. “How you play the music matters, not what you play.”
Over eight years SAMAA FM has seen technologies and governments change, which have both had their own impact on the way it does business. Recently, for example, restrictions were placed on the type of music radio stations could play. “This is a big challenge because our library has been squeezed to only our content,” he said. “All radio stations have the same content, so how you play it makes a difference.”
When SAMAA FM started in 2012, Bollywood was open and they could tap into its huge music archive. Of course, even Pakistani music has a massive repository. But, according to Abro, unfortunately, the original tracks of Pakistani greats, such as Mehdi Hasan, Madam Noor Jehan, Ahmed Rushdi, are not available on the market, so radio stations can’t play the Pakistani classics. “You get them in such bad shape. We never tried to digitize them perhaps, to protect these assets,” he said. “The libraries of the 1960s and 1970s… You’ll get them in some jhankar form, in which music elements have been added on. This may have sounded alright to you if you listened to it on a tape recorder way back then, but if you play it on the radio today, it won’t sound good.”
The change in technology means that old school radio presenters such as Abro now have to contend with video in the shape of Facebook Live or IGTV for their shows as well. An RJ used to only have to worry about their voice (some days RJs would turn up in their pajamas because they never had to worry about their looks). But now, their physical persona matters. Abro feels this distracts the listener from the aural experience. RJs of lesser talent can try to hustle their way through a show with their facial expressions, but they will never be able to match those who keep their audiences riveted with what they say alone.
This story was originally published on December 24, 2020.
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