Foraying into the over-the-top (OTT) market, Radio FM channel Mirchi launched its podcast app Mirchi Plus as radio listenership remains stagnant. Besides podcasts, Mirchi Plus will have original audio stories, videos, and entertainment news.
Available on Android and iOS app stores, Mirchi Plus offers content in ten languages. While actors, including Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Neena Gupta, and Rhea Chakraborty, will voice some of the audio shows, Kareena Kapoor Khan and Pooja Bhatt have their talk shows lined up.
“With the evolving needs of our consumers and the rapid adoption of digital avenues for entertainment, we wanted to expand our consumer engagement and be present where our consumers are,” said Prashant Panday, Managing Director and CEO, Entertainment Network (India) Limited (ENIL). ENIL runs Mirchi, owned by the Times Group.
In the last few years, the growth of radio listeners has remained stagnant due to increasing internet penetration and people consuming content through digital platforms, including YouTube, Netflix, Disney+Hotstar, Spotify, etc.
According to a survey by Statista, the radio listening time duration among people over 18 years old grew by only one minute in 2019. It shot to 16 minutes compared to 15 minutes in 2018 and remained constant at 16 minutes till 2021.
The last two years of pandemic-led lockdowns have pushed people to consume more content online. With a bear outlook on the radio market, Mirchi, known to run Radio Mirchi, is targetting to generate a 25 percent revenue share from digital.
Vineet Jain, Managing Director, BCCL, said, “Mirchi has always been the audience’s go-to choice for all things music. With the launch of ‘Mirchi Plus’, we now enter the exciting and evolving space of story-telling and original content. This transforms Mirchi into its full digital avatar, allowing us to pick, analyse, and act on consumer signals in real-time.”
Mirchi Plus will compete with music streaming platforms Spotify, Amazon-owned Audible, and Airtel’s Wynk, among others.
