Sify joins hand with PlanetRadiocity

Listeners will be able to hear Bollywood and Indian Pop music 24x7, with uninterrupted streaming and Facebook applications.

Sify Technologies, a player in enterprise and consumer internet services in India, has recently partnered with the FM radio station Radio City 91.1 FM, by integrating PlanetRadiocity's web radio to launch radio on Sify.

This tie-up will enable visitors of Sify.com to enjoy Bollywood, Indian Pop, and other genres of music 24x7. Through this partnership, Sify will be targetting the young mobile youth, mainly young professionals and 'next generation' listeners.

Radio city is aiming to increase its web radio's listenership base on the global front with this deal.

The content broadcast on radio on Sify will be different from the terrestrial programming of Radio City 91.1 FM. Listeners of the radio on Sify will experience uninterrupted streaming where visitors will be able to listen to their favourite songs without buffering at an internet speed as low as even 128 Kbps. In addition to this, visitors of this site can select songs from a given list and dedicate it to friends and family. Moreover, users can also post their comments via e-mail or their Facebook account which will eventually get published on their Facebook walls.

In an official communique, Natesh Mani, president, consumer infrastructure services, Sify Technologies, says, "We believe, radio on Sify is a complete 'fun and masti' offering for young professionals and next generation listeners. We are delighted to partner with Radio City and integrate an Indian internet radio channel with Sify.com. It may be put as our marketing initiative to increase our listener base on the internet."

Commenting on this partnership, Rachna Kanwar, head, digital media and new business, Radio City 91.1 FM, says, "This is a strategic move for Radio City. We are perhaps the first Indian radio station to launch a multi-genre Indian web radio, and now through this partnership, we hope to increase our listener base among Indian netizens, globally."

Kanwar further adds, "As mentioned earlier, we are looking at innovating and expanding our listenership base and reach. Moreover, digital media is growing at a fast rate and it has the ability to engage persons 24x7. Now we have 1.4 million listeners on our web radio. With internet usage attaining both critical mass and depth, the medium will only help us see a substantial increase in our listenership. We saw the premise of cross-channel navigation among the visitors of Sify.com to be very promising, so we went ahead to strike a deal."

But, both the companies confirmed, that it was not a monetary deal.

Radio on Sify will appear as a tab on the homepage in all Sify 'mylife' cybercafés, and for all Sify broadband users.