Koolest radio launches new station

The slowdown in advertising spending has not deterred new radio broadcaster Koolest Radio, which has invested Bt40 million in setting up a new English music station and expects an audience of around 1 million by the year-end.

 Smooth Urban Sounds has been in operation for six months, featuring a mix of R&B, soul and pop hits combined with regular news updates from Radio Thailand and BBC World.

Its target audience is local people and expatriates as well as travellers, who are largely unaffected by the current economic downturn, according to managing director MR Rujayapha Abhakorn.

He said the company had

noted that some advertisers were being more cautious with their spending and wanted media

channels that could maximise

the impact of their ads in the

shortest time and radio was con-sidered as one of the best channels of doing this.

Rujayapha is confident the station will attract strong revenue and overtake Easy 105.5 as the leading English music station.

The radio advertising market is worth Bt4 billion.

Its strategy is to apply "marketing taste", which focuses on people who have an upmarket lifestyle and prefer city life rather than applying a niche-market strategy where radio stations limit themselves to specific music styles such as jazz, pop or rock.

Rujayapha said Koolest researched its audience to find out exactly what they like to do and where they go for entertainment. This enables its advertisers to

know how and where to reach the listeners.

Its advertisers include Thanachart Bank, Tourism Authority of Thailand, Piyavej Hospital, spa operators and condominium owners.

Koolest has allocated a market-ing budget of Bt4 million for this year and will be arranging sailing events, international concerts and activities against global warming, as well as co-promotion, co-activities and tie-ins with its advertisers' programmes.

Rujayapha admitted the station would have to work very hard to achieve its audience target but

hoped the marketing activities would be a major driver. Its current daily audience average is around 300,000.

He said the company would spend more than Bt20 million on technology and human resources training this year.

In addition, Koolest plans

to establish another radio station

in Thai later this year but Ruja-yapha declined to reveal more details.