While retail hiring is grabbing the headlines, the jobs action is rising in FM radio channels. Buoyed by good ad revenues and liberal entry norms, channels are hiring aggressively at all levels. As many as 15,000 new jobs are up for grabs with 340 FM stations likely to go on air shortly.

The number of jobs would increase manifold as the radio industry is expected to grow by 32 per cent over the next few years to touch Rs 1,200 crore (nearly $270 million) in revenues by 2010. Industry watchers say that if the operators are allowed to own multiple frequencies, which is the long-pending demand of channels, the number of jobs would shoot up drastically.

Typically, a big station needs a minimum of 40 people and a smaller one, like a relay station, needs 7 staffers. Apart from the quantity, the kind of jobs on offer is vast—station managers, programme managers, radio jockeys, marketing personnel and functional personnel such as administration, finance and HR.

‘‘Considering the huge potential of FM channels, the sector’s appetite for manpower is huge. The opportunities would be at all levels, starting from CEO to executives. In fact, the sector will grow like the way TV has grown in the last 4-5 years,” says MaFoi managing director K Pandyarajan, whose company is involved in talent acquisition for FM channels.

For people like Rajesh Sawhney, president, Reliance Entertainment, under whose supervision Adlabs is setting up 45 FM stations, the flooding of channels will give a boost to hiring in local areas. “Though the senior management and departmental heads will be located in metros, the functional staff are based in the local areas. And the good thing is that the industry will create 15,000-20,000 in direct employment and 10,000 in indirect employment,” says Sawhney.

In fact, Adlabs would hire 2,000 people within next year and will start channels in 4 South Indian and 7 North Indian languages.

Further, increase in ad spend by the companies on the air will also fuel the boom. Of the total amount spent on ads in India, Rs 12,000 crore, radio is expected to garner a share of about two per cent—Rs 250 crore.

A study by Ficci and PricewaterhouseCoopers projects that the share would grow substantially over the next 10 years due to the explosive growth in the ad inventory.

Amidst all the hoopla, combating the poaching of talent by rival channels has become a major concern for the industry. ‘‘As far as senior professionals are concerned, the established FM radio players would feel the brunt, at least in the short term. Mid and entry-level talent migration is happening from other segments of media and entertainment industry. Also, FMCG sector is considered as good bet to attract talent,” says Pandyarajan.

Another FM radio chief executive says that the HR policies have to be designed in such a manner that it should be “learn, earn and grown rather than learn, earn and go.”

Analysts feel that the mushrooming of new channels even in vernacular languages is a positive sign. “None of the firms are making their channel an all-vernacular one. For example, Punjabi is the largest spoken language in the North but no one provides content in that language. There are talks about multi frequency also going on,” says Shiv Agarwal, CEO, ABC Consultants.

Echoing the words of Agarwal, Manish Porwal, Executive director, Starcom Worldwide, says: “It would give a huge boost to local entertainment, language and dialect. Further, as more people are hired to do the retail sales, ‘sons and daughters of the soil’ would get preference.”

(www.financialexpress.com)