Features: Magazine | Literary Review | Life | Metro Plus | Open Page | Education Plus | Book Review | Business | SciTech | Friday Review | Young World | Property Plus | Quest | Folio |

A virtual treat for the music lovers

Youth in the city are `wrongly branded as outmoded' besides being denied of an opportunity to be avant-garde, writes MOHAMED IMRANULLAH S.

IMPRESSIVE An opportunity to register your favourite songs Photo: G. Moorthy

Are you the kind of guy or gal who is bored of the routines? Are you the one craving for a change? Change in the way you communicate, entertain yourself and use technology. If yes, pull up your socks and join a band of aficionados of SS Music, invites its VJs Cary and Paloma.

The duo was in Madurai this week to inaugurate a `Virtual Request' kiosk at Tornado, one of the popular joints for the young at heart. Anybody stepping into the hang out could use the kiosk, free of cost, to request a song or to dedicate it to his or her loved ones. A computer linked to a web camera records the request, which is aired in the 24-hour multilingual music channel a couple of days later.

Wrongly branded

In a pep talk, the Jockeys completely disagreed with the "so-called conservative" outlook of the "traditional" city and believed that the youth here were "wrongly branded as outmoded" besides being denied of an opportunity to be avant-garde.

"It is a mistake by most of the television channels to avoid places like Madurai after being carried away by such illogical notions of conservatism. But, we cannot be cowed down by such tantrums. SS Music has many things in store for Madurai and the first step in the direction is setting up this kiosk," exalts Cary.

Interrupting him, Paloma recalls that once Chennai, her native, too bore the trademark of conservatism. "Not anymore. Just take a look at me and try to figure out anything less adventurous. You may not," she challenges.

She went on saying, the youth here are very much eager to come forward and to speak out in the open, but the avenues were scant. "It is not about the mindset but it is about providing a platform for these youngsters."

Breaking away

Connecting the talk on conservatism with the purpose of her visit, Paloma said: "Phone-in programs and short messaging service offered by most of the music channels have become archaic. Youngsters are bored with the monotonous programming style and that's exactly why we are out with these virtual request kiosks."

With Chennai claiming the honour of being the first destination for such kiosks, many more have been set up in Bangalore, Hyderabad, Kochi, Vijayawada, Coimbatore and Tiruchi. "We have received a tremendous response from all these cities and the hopes are much higher from Madurai," adds Cary.

The requests made through the kiosks would be aired in the `Virtual Request' programme, telecast twice a day totally lasting for two hours. The multilingual channel also allows the audience to request for songs from six different languages including Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Hindi and English.

Innovative

This innovative programming paves way for the audience to appear on television and to display their talents on screen. "If the participants are smart enough, they may even take away my job or land in the hands of the top media professionals," Cary claims.

As of now, some 300 boys and girls utilized the kiosks on weekdays besides 300 others during weekends. More than 25 requests are accommodated in the channel per day.

The recordings of a day are initially stored in the hard disk of the computer and later burnt into DVDs. As soon as the DVD reaches the TV station in Chennai through courier, its all set to go on air, but only after informing the participants over phone.

He claims his channel to be one of the leading exploiters of technology.

"When most of the other music channels were busy communicating with the audience through telephones, we looked upon teleconferencing as an effective medium."

While putting technology to its maximum use, the Channel claims to take care that the end user does not have to face much difficulty in operating the systems.

Operating the kiosks is as easy as switching on your television, only two clicks of the mouse and you get set to record your request.

If you still find it difficult, the channel has arranged for a technical staff to guide you through the process.

Even as Cary carried on, Paloma took us back to the topic on conservatism, adding: "When we launched these kiosks at Coimbatore and Tiruchi, similar apprehensions were raised over the traditional character of those cities. But, we have performed exceedingly well in these cities defying all kinds of fears. I think this is enough example to restrain people from writing off Madurai as a conventional city!"

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail