Radio City, the Star India-managed private FM radio station that has had a successful debut in Bangalore, plans to open its next station in Lucknow in December.

India's first private FM radio station launched its first station in Bangalore in July. According Sumantro Dutta, COO (Radio) Star India: "We are interested in Lucknow as it is one of the major cities of India and hence it has great potential. We would like to be present in this market." Queried on when he expected to launch services in Mumbai and Delhi, Dutta said: "We are still awaiting a few clearances from the government."

Star will conduct market research in Lucknow as it had earlier done in Bangalore in order to ascertain what the preferences of the people of Lucknow are. But Dutta said that at this point it was too early to say anything about the nature of content on the channel.

Regarding advertising potential Dutta said: "There has been a great response from advertisers (local & national) for Lucknow as this will open up opportunities for an extremely cost effective advertising medium and going by the popularity of Radio City in Bangalore, we are hoping the same will happen in Lucknow, thereby bringing a large sets of new audiences to 24-hours non-stop FM radio."

Dutta gave five reasons for the popularity of Radio City in Bangalore: programming & content, station packaging, the seamless nature of the station, the kind of RJ's the station had, and of course the obvious one - the sound reception quality at the listener end.

Questioned as to how Star was planning to expand advertising revenue regarding radio Dutta said: "We plan to grow the advertising pie by exploring unconventional means of advertising on radio & opening up opportunities for new categories of advertisers to use radio. That in itself is a huge task."