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Mirchi Mobile Goes Regional With Bhojpuri

By Nikhil Pahwa on June 20th, 2011 | Post Comment and 0 Reactions

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FM station Radio Mirchi and mobile VAS company Spice Digital* have launched Mirchi Mobile in the Bhojpuri language for Bharti Airtel, and is available on subscription on 59830, reports MediaNewsline. The feed is created by Radio Mirchi at Patna, which already has Radio Mirchi station. While the pricing isn’t mentioned, typically, the pricing is Rs 10 for 100 minutes. Radio Mirchi has operations in 32 cities, and going mobile does two key things for the company:

- Expand beyond the geographical limitations that its FM license restricts it to, to across the country. Bihar is home to a significant migrant population
- Allows a subscription business model, since advertisers are unlikely to fund initiatives beyond city based initiatives, where tracking metrics will be available.

Now it’s not that Spice Digital or any other mobile VAS company cannot launch regional content as Mobile Radio. A tie-up with a radio channel helps by reducing the number of tracks played (over, say 24 hrs), with the addition of commentary from Radio Jockeys, hence the payouts to content owners reduce.