Radio station offers locals rock nostalgia
Radio station offers locals rock nostalgia
By Yoko N. Sari
JAKARTA (JP): Fans of Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Uriah Heep, Grand Funk Railroad, Genesis, or other rock bands dating back to the 1960s and 1970s, now can enjoy their songs on local radio all day long.
Just tune in to M97 FM radio, a local station which has been taking Jakartans back to the "good old days" with "classic rock" songs every day, starting in October last year.
Hikmat Darmawan, a member of the station's program department, said recently that his radio station offers Jakartans, who grew up with this kind of rock music, a chance to walk down memory lane to the accompaniment of their favorite songs.
This nostalgic music is interspersed occasionally with tunes from younger rock bands, such Guns n' Roses and Europe, in order to capture the attention of teenagers as well as their older siblings and parents.
But the majority of the programing is based on broadcasting classic rock songs because there's a large market for it.
"The management is aware that there's a huge market out there. Many people like to listen to such old songs again. Most were regular listeners of Prambors radio in the 1970s," Hikmat said.
Another reason for the radio station to specialize in classic rock songs is the tough competition, especially in Jakarta. In 1994 alone there were 29 FM radio stations in Jakarta, out of the 169 privately-run radio stations throughout Indonesia.
"With such stiff competition, it is important for a radio station to specialize for the sake of its own listeners with their own tastes," Hikmat said.
"Tough competition means facing more rivals in getting advertisements, which help radio stations to survive," he said.
Speaking of commercial prospects for his station, Hikmat, said it is still just "a baby". The radio needs time to exist in the public's heart.
"But we are optimistic about that, because the listeners' response has been very great. Some of them praise the station and say they have been waiting for this kind of radio for 20 years," he said.
He added that his station is still listing potential advertisers.
"The station tries to fulfill the listeners' demand for classic rock by playing the songs clear through, even if it takes 29 minutes," he said.
Most of the listeners are fanatics about their own favorite groups and they would be disappointed if the songs were cut abruptly, he said. "For such fans true fans each song is not just an ordinary song. It has special meaning and it will lose its soul if it's not played clear through to the end."
In order to be sure it has the best selection possible, the station is working on collecting more than 6,000 songs by rock bands from the 1960s and 1970s to be broadcast, he said.
"Sometimes it's difficult to get a CD of certain groups here in Jakarta," he said. He refused to say where his station is getting them.
Hikmat said that his station is also preparing its radio jockeys so they will not only play the music but also be able to give comments on the songs.
The radio management is carrying out training programs for its radio jockeys. This training program includes lessons on the backgrounds and histories of the bands, the music itself and the current affairs of the times the music was produced, as well as how to present classic rock to listeners, he said.
"Such matters are very important because during the initial airing of our programs there were complaints from listeners about our radio jockeys' ways of presenting the songs," he said.
Prambors Group
Radio M97 FM is owned and managed by the Prambors Group.
Prambors Group has six radio stations and all of them have their own specialities and listener targets.
Delta FM specializes in pop songs from the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, Female is especially for career women, Prambors for teenagers, SPFM plays dangdut music and two other stations cater to the tastes of teens in Bali and Bandung.
Prambors radio first went on the air in 1967 as an unlicensed station. It got its license in 1971. Established by teenagers living in Menteng, Malik Syafei, Imran Amir and Mursid Rustam, Prambors has since been very popular among teenagers.
Hikmat said that Prambors listeners in the 1970s are older now, but their taste in music has not changed. "They are still crazy about rock music from that era."
When Prambors took over Monalisa radio, which used to cater to female listeners, last October, the management decided to specialize in classic rock music to meet the existing demand for radio broadcasts of such music.
"We called the radio M97 FM because we don't think that Monalisa is an appropriate name for a station that caters to both male and female listeners," Hikmat said.