Lotus FM works hard to undo damage done by Hlaudi Motsoeneng's 90% decree

Lotus FM, the SABC radio station that caters 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 must 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 have fallen by 130,000 to 260,000. Advertisers have followed suit, saying their target market no longer listens to Lotus FM.

Many listeners leaving the station have found a new home in privately owned radio stations like Radio Hindvani and Radio Islam, while others have gone to East Coast Radio.

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 is organising parties and community events in malls and other places frequented by the Indian community.

A member of Lotus FM’s marketing team, who would only speak to Business Day 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….

“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 

Ashwin Trikamjee, a prominent legal expert and president of the Maha Sabha, an organisation for Hindus, said listeners would keep leaving the station unless the SABC changed its directive.

“Lotus FM was established as a community station to cater for the needs of the Indian people. But now that it has been forced to play local music it is no longer serving those needs,” he said.

“Other SABC stations can withstand the local music quota. But for Lotus FM it has had a disastrous effect. I don’t see Lotus surviving if it continues in this manner.”

Pastor David Nadasen, a prominent Durban Christian leader, echoed his views. “Indian people are passionate about their culture, their food, singing and music, and once you take that away you are left with nothing. It’s either they bring back the Indian music or the station will die a slow, painful death.”

Kganyago told Business Day on Sunday that the SABC was 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.

“We don’t hate international music; it is just that we like our own music more,” Kganyago said.