Lotus in bid to halt listenership slide
LOTUS FM, the SABC radio station catering mainly to Indian listeners, has pulled out all the stops to win back listeners irked by the SABC’s local content quotas.
The Durban-based radio station’s ratings and listenership tanked shortly after Hlaudi Motsoeneng’s decree that all public stations play 90% local music. The change has had a devastating impact on Lotus FM, which has for decades played music by artists from the Indian subcontinent. In the four months since the decree took effect, the station has lost about a third of its listeners.
Average daily listener numbers has fallen by 130 000 to 260 000. Advertisers have followed suit, saying their target market no longer listens to Lotus FM.
Listeners leaving the station have found a new home in privately owned radio stations.
Now Lotus FM has embarked on a campaign to prevent a further slide in listenership. Its marketing team has booked billboards in predominantly Indian areas, and are also organising parties and community events in malls and other places frequented by the In- dian community.
A member of Lotus FM’s marketing team, who would only speak on condition of anonymity, said: “We are working very hard to bring back lost listeners. Our plan is to encourage the existing listener to stay longer and return sooner and to encourage them to talk about the station to non-listeners.
“But we don’t know how successful these efforts will be because many people insist to us that we must go back to playing the kind of music that they are used to,” the person said.
Lotus FM programme manager Santosh Beharie declined to comment on Sunday, referring questions to SABC’s head of communications, Kaizer Kganyago.
Kganyago said the SABC is unlikely to change its policy.
“We are not changing the character of radio stations. The character of the stations will remain the same. All we are saying is that they must play music by local artists. This is an opportunity for Indian artists to go to the studio and record their traditional music so that it can be played by stations like Lotus FM,” Kganyago said. — BDLive