The fall of Dhaka's FM radios

During the golden age of FM radio (roughly from 2008 to 2013), RJ Sayem was one of the radio jockeys who commanded a huge fan base. 

Once his fans in Sylhet opened a fan club and asked him to inaugurate it. The fans booked tickets to Sylhet and a hotel for Sayem, and showered him with so many gifts that someone had to help carry the gifts. 

The radio jockeys from those days have an abundance of such stories of their close interaction with fans, now neatly stored down their memory lanes.

It was a time when everyone in Dhaka used to put their headphones on to listen to the radio. Thousands of people would text radio stations to play their favourite songs. New songs would have been released on the radio first. It was also the time when car owners replaced their CD players with radios in the car. 

And the RJs stood at the centre of the craze. 

But those colourful days for Dhaka's FM radio are long gone. 

Many FM radios are currently operational, but concerned people say the radio stations have disappeared from conversations for a myriad of reasons. Primarily because, they say, public interest in radios declined, revenues fell as advertisements per hour reduced from 20 minutes to less than five minutes on average (meaning stations face difficulty to fill slots with advertisements for even five minutes per hour). 

And programmes now mostly run without a title sponsor, whereas it used to be a rat race for title sponsors back in the day. 

"Be it celebrities or common people, everyone would talk about the radio. But now, nobody talks about it anymore. I doubt if people listen to the radios at all," RJ Sayem told The Business Standard. He has retired from the industry as the head of operations of Radio Capital. 

During the peak years of his career, he worked as RJ for Radio Today and Foorti. 

"Radios were a great platform to begin a career in media; it turned out to be an outstanding investment destination, it was a big advertisement destination, and a big thing for the listeners," Sayem said. 

"The time you said [roughly 2008 to 2013], I think I spent my best time [in the industry]. That was the blissful time of radio. But then, people fell slowly and gradually [out of love] with the radio. [Then came] radio's fall in its entirety and [it was] abrupt," he added. 

Money dried up 

Like the craze—among businessmen -–to own a TV channel came as a wave in Bangladesh, the same happened to radio channels. 

At one time, more than 20 FM radio stations officially began broadcasting. But as more joined the industry, the radio stations, ironically, began to lose their foothold, instead of capturing more space and audience. 

Photo: Noor-A-Alam

YouTube, Facebook and Instagram seized the entertainment space that radio stations once commanded. With declining audiences, the money dried up as the advertisers moved away, and the programme quality continued to fall as prominent RJs switched to other industries, mostly because the radios couldn't keep up with the asking salaries anymore. 

"In 12-hour programmes, we used to have more than two hours of advertisements. Now we have only 27 minutes of advertisements," said Sagar Shahriar, Executive Producer of ABC Radio. 

"Basically the struggle is we have gotten too much into digital. In reality, no one is actually watching television [or the advertisement in effect] at home either. But the companies want advertisements there anyways.

Whoever I talk to says we don't have the budget at the moment. Give us time, and let us prepare a budget. Another problem is we have to get the advertisements through agencies. They also take a percentage cut. And in some cases the agencies also have their own radios," explained Shahriar. 

"They don't want to give [us] ads," he added.  

Out of scene

Apart from the revenues drying up, Sayem pointed at three reasons which led to the downfall of FM radio. "What happened is the crisis of manpower. Many people write, but not everyone is a journalist. The same thing happened to the radio. There were many radios, but not much [skilled] manpower," Sayem said. 

The scarcity of good RJs became an issue with the launch of too many radios. "I am not saying we were the best RJs, but we tried hard; we took training from Indian trainers, and we worked on ourselves. Radio was our everything, so we gave our everything to radio. Now there are so many other options. We didn't use it as a stair [to move on to the other options]," Sayem said. 

Secondly, the radios had an issue with creativity.  

"It is a creative sector. You have to bring business within the periphery of creativity. If you think this is all business disregarding creativity, then it doesn't work," Sayem said. 

About the station's tendency of copying each other, he said, "what happened here is one station begins a programme, another station decides that they will do the same, and they start copying. No new content or ideas came, and what happened is the fall of quality." 
 
And thirdly, most of the popular RJs, including Sayem, RJ Nirob, RJ Russel or Maria Nur, either shifted to television or stopped working in the radio industry. "FM radios couldn't hold us the way Radio Mirchi holds Mir [Afsar Ali] or Mir holds Mirchi," Sayem said. "This is my career after all. I need a good salary." 

Sayem added, "Where other countries raise salaries, in our country, the tradition is like - okay he became a senior, fetch two more guys in his place. If the radios could hold on to four big heads like us, it would have been enough. But no one stayed."  

'Hanging by the skin of teeth' 

Aziz Hakim worked on different radios like Today, Shadhin, and People's Radio for several years. He said that during the peak season, lakhs of people would listen to the radio programmes such as Bhoot FM, Love Guru, Raat Bhor Gaan, which commanded a big audience. 

Photo: Noor-A-Alam

But after a boom in 2013, things started to go south. "By 2016-17, radios had few commercials – almost close to none. No one would text, instead they would have to create the texts themselves, they had to move to Facebook and beg for comments," Aziz said, adding, "now the FM radios are only hanging by the skin of their teeth through sports commentary." 

FM Radios now stream their programmes on Facebook and YouTube, which the likes of RJ Sayem do not quite support. Sayem is against it, because he believes "popularity is different than view counts, it's more permanent." 

But the new generation of RJs looks at this as an adaptation approach to changes and means to survival. Among them is RJ Sadia. She works in Radio Shadhin and believes that the radio is bouncing back, hand-in-hand with the digital platforms. 

"When the fall began, I was a listener," Sadia said. She believes what happened was they didn't change or adapt to the dynamics of the digital sphere in time. 

"It was like we are 'radios' - we will only go on on-air frequency, no matter how many digital platforms there are. We won't change ourselves," Sadia said,  "I think only those who can change themselves with time can survive. The problem is when they don't want to change." 

Now that FM radios are working on digital platforms like YouTube, Facebook and Apps, Sadia said that the popularity of radio is gradually increasing again.

The content of the FM radio has also changed, she said. 

"In the past, people would request songs, but now people listen to our words. They listen to our live sports commentaries. We do a lot of social activities. We celebrate days like women's day for example. We do highlight many topics surrounding women's rights, and mental health. 

As it shifted to Facebook live, we cannot talk for hours like before, and play songs during the break. [But] we go live for like 15 to 20 minutes, talk about the show topic, and interact with people. It is like a friendly meeting. They see and talk with me. It feels more lively," concluded Sadia.