AgTalk | Victim or Heroine? Your Story, Your Choice! : Apurva Purohit

Ten minutes into a conversation with this lady and I was impressed and inspired by her zeal and passion to work. She is a firm believer in women power and their talent, with no inclination to favor her gender for she is extremely unbiased when it comes to hard work. The lady believes in the language of hard work as the only way to success. She only believes in stating facts while talking about the ability of women and urged them to shun their doubts for she believes women are ingrained with the ability to succeed on the dual front of home and office.

Adgully thus presents to you Apurva Purohit, CEO, Radio City 91.1 FM, one of India’s leading FM radio networks. Purohit has spent over 23 years in advertising and media and is a specialist in the field of media businesses and brands. Her expertise as a media brand specialist is the guiding force behind transforming Radio City from a conventional radio player into one of India’s leading radio networks today, both in reach and revenue.

Under her leadership Radio City has won several awards including being amongst the Best Places to Work in the Great Places to Work Survey in the last 2 years. She was the first President of the AROI, the industry body of the radio industry, where she was at the forefront of several industry initiatives like the resolution of the royalty issue, the structuring of the Phase III policy and the evangelizing of the medium amongst advertisers. She is also a member of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting’s Sectoral Council on Innovation.

She has been voted amongst the top 50 women in Business and amongst the top ten women in the media industry. She is a strong believer in nurturing and encouraging gender diversity at the workplace and Radio City is a reflection of her vision, where 34% of the employees are women. She lectures extensively on managing diversity at the work place and on challenges working women face at work and home, and how to cope with them. She is the founder of www.womenatwork.co.in an online networking forum where women can connect with one another.

In conversation with Apurva Purohit.

Adgully (AG): How did you chance upon the concept of Radio City Freedom Awards?

Apurva Purohit (AP): Our terrestrial stations play Bollywood music, while all of us hear so much of popular music that we don’t seem to realize that there is music beyond the filmy music that we are accustomed to hearing. As we are people from the radio industry we are exposed to different kinds of music and one day it so hit upon us that the music outside Bollywood is so diversified and huge. But there is no platform available for the creators of such music. So, carnatic musicians from the South, the North Eastern bands and the folk of Rajasthan are never heard by the listeners.

There is immense talent out there and we were sure that given chance listeners will be interested to be exposed to music that is beyond the Bollywood films. The problem that lies is that such kind of music does not enjoy a distribution mechanism for them. So we decided to bring about a change in the scenario as responsible people from the radio industry.

We could definitely have more genre specific stations if the government permitted us to do so but there is no help from that sector so with the constraints imposed on us we came up with the entire concept of an online stream. We decided that we would not have an online stream that duplicates the playlists played on the terrestrial station. Instead we would cater to an audience that wants something different from us and that is how Freedom, Independent music, Indie-Pop and Smaran, devotional music sprang up. We started putting these streams online to cater to an alternate music available and we got a fabulous response post its launch.  Four hundred artists came forward through this initiative and we had two million streams. So the next challenge was how you would take it to a larger platform and this brought forward the idea of creating a platform like Radio City Freedom Awards.

AG: How are you planning to make sure that this alternative music is heard across all generations and is just not limited to the youth?

AP: A new trend is always picked up by youth first because they are the adapters who would bring about a change. Any new fashion trend is picked up by them, so currently the two million online listeners of Freedom definitely comprise the youth. Awards are one way to publicize it amongst a larger audience and as it receives media coverage there will definitely be more exposure to alternate music and for the listeners towards the different kinds of music available. We are promoting the independent musicians and their music on our terrestrial station as well as there are events and ceremonies taking place around it. A larger audience will be exposed through these efforts of ours to non-filmy music and if they start listening to music available online, it would be great for us.

AG: What are the new ideas that you are bringing in Radio City?

AP: We are waiting for the phase III to come out which will certainly bring about expansion in terms of genre specific stations or alternate market. We are very clearly trying to exploit the online medium better as we believe that music will soon move from the terrestrial station to the digital medium. This has been taking place across the world and very recently has started happening in India. The challenge that lies ahead is to capture the digital space available. We are launching another four streams this year and by the end of this year we will have eight online streams made available to the listeners. Each online stream is a radio station in its own right and it requires its own music, own playlists, RJs and therefore in totally it is a humungous effort to run eight streams in all together. We are also exploring the opportunity of launching south streams and that is definitely a big initiative.

AG: What kind of promotion campaigns are planned for the Radio City Freedom Awards?

AP: There is a complete 360 degree effort being put into the promotion of these awards. There is a big campaign planned out, huge hoardings will be seen across the city. We have tied up with press partners and are doing mall activations. We are going to different malls and doing performances. We have put up drop boxes where people can come and drop in the CDs of their original music.

AG: What next is Apurva planning for Radio City?

AP: We always talk about products and streams but I have made a big effort and this is definitely an innovation in the Media industry. I have made Radio City from a media brand to a very strong organization.  We have won the award for being one of the Best Places to Work and are in line in the third year for winning some awards in the same category. We are constantly up against the likes of Google in competition for this award.

We are also working with the best people. In Radio City freedom Awards we are working with KPMG. Our processing system is great. Attrition level in our organization is 100% while the average in the industry is 30%. The whole building of a system, a culture took over seven years and that is what I want to continue with on further.

AG: Which award do you covet for Radio City and yourself?

AP: I am very happy with the fact that we are rated as one of the best media organizations and ofcourse there are the other creative and relationship awards to be won but I am most proud of the award that Radio City won the Best Place to Work at award. Because I derive great satisfaction to see people happy to come to work every day at Radio City and when I see the low attrition that is the best award for me.

AG: 34% of Radio City’s employees are women and you are very passionately associated with the cause of women empowerment. Do you then agree that we have burdened the women into playing the dual role of a homemaker and a working professional while men go scot free of responsibilities?

AP: It is not that men go scot free but yes it is a fact that women have to do double work. They work in two shifts, one at office and the other at home. But I think women can cope with it because women are smart, can multi-task and are very hard working.  They can cope up with the dual responsibilities presented to them. We do a lot for our women employees and so do many other organizations, but it is the women who have to have that kind of belief in them that she will be able to succeed in the workplace and also manage her house effectively.

I am very passionately looking into this aspect by speaking and writing about this topic on various forums. My book on the same topic -you can succeed in work and at home without thinking of compromise will be coming out this August.

AG: You were the first President of AROI. Is the industry open to the idea of female leaders?

AP: Fortunately we are in the media industry which has always been fair with women. I have not come across media organizations where there are women CEOs even now. There are lot of women employees at the beginning level but somewhere at the top they are missing. The moment a woman decides to get married or have a baby they decide to sit back at home. This is one aspect that has to change for there has to be natural evolution by which you will see more and more women working in the middle management and reaching the top positions.

AG: What is your message to the young girls?

AP: Accept that you can have it all. Have the confidence that you can achieve success everywhere.

You have the choice to decide whether you are the victim or the heroine of the story. All of us need to write our own stories with ourselves in the center as the heroine of our story.

AG: Do you have any regrets about anything in your journey in the professional world? Would you like to back to change it?

AP: Frankly, I don’t have any regrets for I never look into the past. I think things have gone very well for me, some things have happened by chance while some have happened deliberately because I have worked hard for it. The whole thing has come together very well. I have a lovely family and a lovely career and also excellent colleagues in the organization. I am happy with the way everything has shaped up. It was always a mix of both for me-great bosses with great amount of hard work put in by me.

AG: What were the challenges that you faced in your career?

AP: We all face challenges but there isn’t any big challenge as such that I have faced. But the greatest challenge that women have to face is to deal with their guilt and they have to learn to live with that.

AG: If not this, what would have you been doing?

AP: I would be writing and giving motivational speech to any young girl I met. By Rabab Rupawala [rabab(at)adgully.com]