An Interview with Pijosh Philip

Apart from Managing the Programming teams of Bangalore and the Goa stations and handling the station’s show content and music management Pijosh enjoys spending his time cooking, playing football and going on long drives.

His Story

A journey that started way back in his college days when he began doing several part time jobs along with volunteering to work on a few daily radio shows, Pijosh in the year 2009 got the opportunity to explore the space of emceeing, something he very quickly found himself to be good at, given his extroverted nature and familiarity with the local lingo. Eventually, he happened to get in touch with Mr. Arvind Sabhaney and together, they worked on a few projects that received immense appreciation and praise.

Pijosh has even held a position in Marketing, which he did for a year before going back to radio taking up in the bargain more responsibilities and challenges that pushed him to grow as a radio professional. Eventually, he got into competition radio and is today the programming head of Indigo radio in Bangalore and Goa handling a team of 15 and managing the content and music throughout. “You don’t need to have a certain background to be a certain person. It all comes down to making a simple decision- money or profession and ultimately you realize that it is in choosing the profession that gets you the money.”

How He Got To Where He Is Today

At work, Pijosh spends quality time taking training sessions and invests in constructive criticism all based on the idea that it’s ultimately the brand that has to grow and in order to do so, every member of the team must be competent and in tune with the latest developments within the industry.

Walking us through how he prepares for each time he goes on air, Pijosh spends close to two and a half hours practising for a 3 hour show that he does. Reflecting on his time spent being the voice behind the mic, connecting with Bangaloreans all over the city, he has always based his ability to put on a good show on the time he spends practising for it. Even today, he is proud of the number of people he has been able to connect with and enjoys the rapport he was able to establish with his fans and his audience over the last few years.

2020 And His Experience

Change is the only constant in life and 2020 has been symbolic of this in more ways than one, pushing us to evolve and test our boundaries. What most have failed to understand is the impact of the pandemic on Radio and Pijosh goes on to tell us about the two sides of it. One from the product side of it that hasn’t been affected as much and the other from the sales side of it. While the initial months were a struggle having to move to a work-from-home environment, the sales department took a big dip and they are still recovering from it.

Now with the festive season just round the corner, Pijosh is hoping that things will soon pick up once again. Business wise, the industry has taken quite a huge hit but product wise things seem to be doing just about okay. Radio professionals took a salary cut as well with most of the RJ’s working on a contract basis. \

His Stint With Events

Pijosh tells us about his experience working with events since the pandemic began and about how the initial few months were pretty slow in terms of revenue generation. He goes on to talk about the state of affairs for those artists struggling during these difficult times and his heart goes out to each one of them. However, he is positive for the future and hopeful of what is to come.

2021 And His Hopes For The New Year

Pijosh is of the opinion that while there is no knowing for sure when the pandemic will come to an end, it is up to each one of us to do our bit and ensure that we take a stand in terms of being cautious and adhering to safety protocols where and when necessary. Work wise, Pijosh hopes to grow in his company, grow his team and build his website along with a strong network and do more events.

He is also looking forward to pursuing a few online courses to build his skillset and learn a few tricks and hacks that need to be learnt to be better equipped for online events. He is also incredibly passionate about wanting to do something for the welfare of the community around him to help smaller companies to the best of his ability.

While large scale events are definitely out, he believes that we need to focus on smaller events where the level of impact while limited to a screen, needs to be as well executed as if it were an on-ground event. Most importantly, we need to be positive as there are always challenges that push us to evolve merely for the possibility of something better happening.

Parting Thoughts

Leaving us with some words of wisdom, Pijosh stresses on the need to put ourselves out there, step out of our comfort zones and explore challenging new avenues. Ultimately, it is up to each one of us to accept the changing times and adapt accordingly in order to evolve as better rounded professionals. This is the right time to get your basics right, plan and stay rooted while spending some time getting things done. The better prepared you are, the higher the chances of success.

An interesting and insightful session where we learnt more about our speaker and his incredible journey thus far in the space of Radio, it was indeed a pleasure to host Pijosh Philip and we wish him the best of luck in all that he sets out to accomplish.

In case you missed out on the live session, do head on over to our Instagram Page to watch the recording.