India Radio Forum: 2009

We made it to Taj Lands End by 9am after going through some short cuts that the Auto wallah went zig-zag through. It was India Radio Forum once again. Like every year, walking down the steps towards the Forum area, one can get that familiar aura of Radio Professionals. Though it is meant for media planners, Brand Managers et al, it as usual ends up as a congregation of the Private FM Radio fraternity.

The session started with the normal CEO panel with the usual suspects. The same old discussion, same old points, and they went on blah blah blah. Radio Rocks because of what it can do for advertisers and Radio is in dire straights unless the government changes some policies blah blah blah. And thank you very much. I had heard enough and was looking forward to some real inside stuff on creating really good radio programs that could captivate audiences.

So session after session on technology and audience measurement and then finally one guy I had heard before, Diamid Moncrieff. A passionate radio guy from the UK who really believes that sounds could influence. I liked that session.

After that, the guy who had been sold the hardest, Mike Reiss. He is the guy who has penned the award winning and whacky TV series “THE SIMPSONS”. His session was full of laughs and though it had nothing to do with radio per se, it did make one wonder about the possibilities. I guess this was the best session and got everyone back in the groove post lunch.

We had heard and seen enough and having no entries for the Awards that was to follow, we headed out once the Forum was over.