Mizanur Rahman
Built on privatising voices or making voices of the unheard heard, FM radios themselves are struggling to survive amid crisis of revenue and creative contents along with the failure to stay relevant in the age of digitalisation.
Failing to survive with scant revenue, a good number of FM radios have discontinued many of their programmes and massively downsized their manpower.
The whole industry has worn on skeletal look and is sending out an SOS for funds, modernisation and digitisation, thanks to the frequent firing by the authorities concerned.
Harun Ur Rashid (not his real name) is one of the large number of radio professionals who were either fired or said goodbye to the industry. Harun, once a high official of Radio Today, country’s first private FM radio, was fired just after the attack of Covid-19 pandemic in March last year.
This man had worked with radio station for more than ten years, and never thought of being terminated as he was very efficient professional and earning huge revenue for his station. Despite having his long work experience finally, Harun left the radio sector and joined a renowned company.
“With advertisement, sponsorship as the basic revenue earnings for the sector, Frequency Modulation (FM) radio was profitable institution. But in recent years the revenue started to squeeze,” Harun added.
Many radio professionals like Harun are either being fired or saying goodbye to FM radio sector, which was a very popular infotainment tool among the city people specially the young generation.
According to the Ministry of Information, 27 FM radio stations are broadcasting their programmes mainly in Dhaka and only a hand few in the periphery.
Currently, the ministry officials have no information that which radio station is out of service.
In old good days of radio, the news department of Radio Today had 18 reporters but now there are only six.
“Every section reduced manpower including production which dwindled to one from three, though the newly-created digital media section and hired two staff afresh,” informed Monjur Hossain, a senior reporter of the Radio Today.
Gazi Habiba Afroz, a former Newsroom Editor of Radio Today, left her job in 2019 to take her maternal responsibilities and others family issues but she wants to come back to her old job.
“Accounts section has been giving us salary every after three and a half months from 2017. Actually, I have financial support from my husband but it is hard to survive in this sector for others who are depending on salary,” Habiba added.
Habiba is expecting normalisation of the pandemic period and financial struggle of FM Radio sector, so that she can return to her work as soon as possible.
Radio Dhoni, the country’s first 24-hour news radio, cut most of the jobs and now operating programme by fresher and trainee employees. Though the radio station raucously started on April 1, 2014 with 75 employees, now a few persons operating the station.
There is no news reporter and jokey with a single news bulletin five days a week except Friday and Saturday, according to a senior news broadcaster.
Siddiqur Romon, assignment editor of the Radio Dhoni, told The Business Post, “We have been working with the station very well since 2015 but 2020 took us into uncharted waters.”
ABC Radio is a 24-hour news and entertainment FM radio station in Bangladesh, a concern of Mediastar Limited of Transcom Limited.
The radio station started with a large team of more than 100 manpower, but now there are a few persons and it happened because of cost-cutting policy.
With fanfare, Radio Foorti started its operation with total 30 manpower, but now 23 persons are working in the whole station, according to Prasad Roy, Assistant Manager of HR and Admin department.
Eight radios out of service
Twenty-seven radios include Radio Today, ABC Radio, Radio Bhumi, Radio Foorti, Radio Aamar, DhakaFM, Asian Radio, Radio Dhoni, Peoples Radio, Radio Shadhin, Radio Next, Radio Din Raat, Radio Dhol, Jago FM, Radio Capital FM, Bangla Radio, City FM, Spice FM, Radio Prime, Times Radio, Desh Radio, Radio Ekattor, Radio City, Radio Active, Colours FM, Radio Amber and Sufi FM.
Of the 27, Radio Edge, Asian Radio, Radio Next, Radio Prime, Times Radio, Desh Radio, Radio City and Radio Active are taken off the air, according to sector experts.
Radio Edge went off the air just after the pandemic started in Bangladesh in March 2020.
There is no rating system
Mirza Shiblee, Chief Executive Officer of the Radio Edge, expressed his deep concern over the sector, saying they had financial issues but actually the station ceased to run due to some technical glitches. They would resume the operation after getting technician from abroad to fix their problem.
“Our advertisement market is not that much big but the number of radios is too many,” he added.
Aminul Hakim, Chief Executive Officer of Dhaka FM and Radio Amber told The Business Post, major radio stations had monthly 1 crore and the minors in the market had at least 40 to 50 lakh on average revenue earning. But the bad situation started dogging the sector from 2017.
“We have to compromise in quality when we underpay. Also, we reeled from budget crisis and stopped taking any big programme,” he added.
Shams Sumon, station head of the Radio Bhumi, said that marketing team of FM radios failed to convince advertisement agencies that the radio is oldest popular media that can reach much people than other media.
Advertisement rate in FM radio is lower than other digital platforms. Agencies are counting eyeballs (views) on digital platforms. But how they will count that how many viewers skip the advertisements after few seconds in a 5.5-inch monitor, he added.
Most importantly, Kantar MRB was working on rating FM radios in Bangladesh but due to crisis of subscribers it has been stopped. Now agencies and corporate houses have no idea about the rating of FM radios. Before providing advertisement, it is important to know that how many people the radio can reach.
Sumon told, agencies are encouraging peoples to give advertisement to digital platform because they can avail full benefit from there where they get 15 per cent from TV and radio.
Ehsanul Huq Tito, head of operations of the ABC Radio, told that ABC Radio, a sister concern of daily Prothom Alo, has taken a new plan to work jointly with the newspaper. The FM radio have seven news bulletins in 24 hours instead of news update in every hour.
“Actually, private FM radio owners’ association does not have effective work plan to sustain the radio industry in Bangladesh like newspaper and television owners’ associations,” he added.
Tito said, “Now private FM Radio is running on previous reputation. The government should pay attention to the sector.”
Mejbah Shimul, a senior reporter of online news portal Sarabangla, who worked Radio Dhoni for one and half year, said, “I assumed that the radio is going to face financial crisis and left the radio.”
Digital transformation is one of the major challenges for FM radio sector, Shimul said.
According to many other sector insiders, most of the radio channels are at war with digitalization and facing a fight to the finish. A few stations are living off support from their sister concerns.
Unique content has to be thought out to survive
Golam Kebria Sarkar, prominent radio jokey (RJ) and well known as RJ Kebria, former station in-charge of Dhaka FM told, television can survive with digital transformation but there is no hope for radio.
“The sector grew up without any prudent plan, if they want to survive then radio contents have to be well-thought and time-befitting,” he added.
Apart from 27 FM radios, Bangladesh Betar and some foreign media outlets—BBC, DW, Radio Tehran, NHK world service also have their own FM frequencies for broadcasting radio programmes in Bangla language.
