Pappu Pass Ho Gaya!

Over time I have realized that listening to radio is nothing short of a stroll in a busy marketplace. Akin to how merchants change the wares displayed in shop windows in line with the season, festival or other topical themes, same happens in radio or for that matter on any other media. The programming wears the skin of the season and the same merchants descend on mass media singing virtues about how their wares are flavor of the season.

Listening to a segment on radio station 94.3FM Radio One, I realized that it’s been over a decade since I passed my 12th Standard Examinations. MJ Shilpa hosts the segment from 11:00 AM to 2:00 PM and prompts her listeners to participate in two exciting contests during this period. Well what are these two contests…?

Maximum Lyrics: Listeners are played a short clip of a popular Bollywood song with part of it muted. The listeners have to text the muted lyrics to win goodies.

Maximum Lies: Listeners are told three points about a Bollywood flick, viz actor, actress…or anything that is Bolly! One of the three statements told by MJ Shilpa is false. The listeners have to text which statement was false, 1^st, 2^nd or 3^rd to win goodies.

Today when I tuned to this segment, both the contests were woven around the theme of exams. Why? Well, today Karnataka Pre-University board announced the 12^th Standard Examination Results! So instead of Maximum Lyrics, todays first contest was about Who said to whom, wherein a short dialogue was played from a film and the listener had to text who said this dialogue to whom and the name of the movie. The dialogue was from the movie Munnabhai MBBS in which Munna (played by Sanjay Dutt) tells Dr Suman (played by Gracy Singh) that he has topped the exam!

The second contest Maximum Lies was about three points from the story of the movie 3 Idiots. 3 Idiots was based on the concept of unforgiving nature of the education system and society towards failures and non-conformists.

With almost a third of FM listenership contributed by 12 – 19 and 20 – 24 years old, and education being among the top advertisers on radio, no doubt, it’s an important segment to cater to. Last night on another radio station 104FM Fever, I liked Darius saying, “no matter what’s the result, you still have another 60 years of life ahead of you, so don’t do anything drastic…exam results are not the end of the world”.

So, I brace myself for an advertising spree, offers from youth fashion retailers giving discounts equivalent to the marks one has scored, chocolatiers urging to have some meetha (sweet)…uff!