Minsk City project, more modern hits. Radio-Minsk begins a new season

New projects, a change in the musical concept, more multimedia - Radio-Minsk begins a new season on City Day, September 12. Details - in an interview with the editor-in-chief of Radio-Minsk Dmitry Parton.

- In the capital in FM-band sound several dozen radio stations, plus streaming broadcasting on the Internet. What place did Radio-Minsk define itself here?

- We are an infotainment city radio. This is a complex segment of broadcasting, as most people refer to radio as a background source of music and information – news, weather, traffic jams. We also have author linear broadcasts with guests and a dozen applied programs with the participation of city leaders, prominent Minsk residents, business directors, doctors, teachers, political scientists, investigators, rescuers, youth leaders, musicians and even bloggers. It’s a special adrenaline to see five or six guests a day in the studio. Therefore, we are not listened to in the background by those who are interested and important in the socio-political life, news and events of the capital.

- How do you assess the volume of broadcasting by quantitative indicators?

- According to media meter audience research, we have almost 50,000 regular listeners per week. But here it is important that most of our programs are released in multimedia format, and in seven days in instant messengers and video hosting stories gain under 100,000 views.

- What are these programs and will you develop multimedia broadcasting in the new season, creating quasi-television?

- Without this, modern media cannot survive. Among the multimedia and even interactive projects were and still are “Alarm Show”, “Ask a Question to the Moscow Authorities”, “Evening Political Channel”, “Speaks and Shows Minsk”, “Impulse of the City” and “Causes and Effects”. Most new projects will also have video manifestations, and Minsk residents will have the opportunity to listen to them in podcasts. These are small stories and blogs on the portal minsknews.by, in video hosting, messengers and social networks "Minsk-Novosti" and on the radio. In the new season, we are focused on the active presence of Radio-Minsk in social networks and even in such new ones for us as Threads and TikTok.

- Radio is primarily about news. They come out every day. Will anything change in their concept?

- The pitch is conceptually not. It is important that Radio-Minsk is not newscasts collected from the feeds of news agencies, but direct inclusions from the scenes, small telephone interviews and reports from all over the capital.

- What purely urban projects can you boast of? What remains in the broadcast, and what will be new?

- We always focus on the Minsk agenda. But from the new season, the city theme will also be combined into the Minsk City hour project, which will run daily on weekdays from 11:00 to 12:00. There will be tracks of Belarusian performers, special newscasts and exclusive programs about the life of the capital.

Separately, I will present a new project by Tamara Vyatskaya and Milana Crook “Flagships”. Made in Minsk.” It will be released on Mondays at 14:40 and will talk about the directors of factories and associations, the technological sovereignty of the capital’s enterprises and the strength of brands that every citizen of Minsk is proud of.

- Will projects like the Causes and Consequences joint with the Investigative Committee of Belarus be created?

- From the new season on Saturdays, Artyom Romanov’s four-hour show “Romanovski Weekend” will feature two joint projects: with the Health Committee of the Minsk City Executive Committee “Your Health”, where practicing doctors will become guests of the studio, and the program “Rescue Service 112” with the official representative of the Minsk City Department of the Ministry of Emergency Situations Olga Melchenko, where we will talk about human safety. The projects will be multimedia.

- And yet radio is music. You have a lot of it. I noticed that even before the new season, it changed and gradually moves away from classic rock and hits of the 1980s-1990s to the modern direction.

- We have more and more youth projects with young hosts, bloggers and guests of Radio-Minsk Studio. Therefore, with the new season, we fundamentally change the musical concept, rejuvenating both world and Belarusian hits. This format is called Adult Contemporary Hit Radio. It is aimed at listeners aged 25-45 and involves a balanced content, including rhythmic and dance music, as well as popular hits in the genres of pop, R&B and pop rock. The basis of the air will be current compositions, which will be selected on the basis of international and local charts. There will be the introduction of daily program rotation of music content, taking into account the behavioral characteristics of the audience in different periods of the day. We will form separate musical blocks - morning, afternoon and evening.

- I have always liked Inna Belokhvostik’s small but very fascinating historical program Once Upon a Time in Minsk. Will she stay on the air?

- Yes, this wonderful project will continue, and there is even an idea to film it. Inna will also present a new author’s program “Small streets of big people”: on Tuesdays at 16:10 she will talk about Minsk residents who change the city for the better by their work. Another of the novelties - two programs of Dana Vishnevskaya: "You are in prime" - about young specialists, their first successes and difficulties - and "MinsKULT" - about style, culture, architecture, new spaces and current projects of the capital.

Radio-Minsk broadcasts around the clock, seven days a week. In Minsk - at a frequency of 92.4 FM, in Mogilev - 98.1 FM, in Brest - 100.4 FM, in Vitebsk - 106.4 FM, in Gomel - 105.6 FM.

Photo by Sergei Lukashov