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Central Railway earns big through ads on PA system by railgenie on 23 August, 2012 - 09:01 AM
avatar railgenie Central Railway earns big through ads on PA system on 23 August, 2012 - 09:01 AM

The next time you are waiting for a local train at a platform, you may be regaled by an upbeat song from a Bollywood movie on the railway’s public address (PA) system.

After earning revenue of nearly Rs. 4 lakh within a week for promoting Salman Khan starrer Ek tha Tiger through its PA


system, Central railway (CR) believes it has chanced upon another source of revenue.
An audio clip promoting the film has been playing at CR stations, even during peak hours, for the last few days. In it, Salman Khan requests fans to come and watch his latest movie, which released recently.

This new method of advertising through the PA system, which is generally used for communicating railway related information to passengers, has been getting a good response from advertisers.

“Some people have approached us to advertise their movies through our passenger address system,” said Vidyadhar Malegoankar, public relations officer, CR. However, he refused to share any more details.

CR is considering this system as an alternate source of revenue, which was a hitherto unexplored avenue. It could soon become an easy and powerful medium to reach a target audience of more than 35 lakh people.

CR authorities are hopeful that this will draw in advertisers. “Although it works for 24 hours, the PA system is not used continuously for making announcements. It is only used for few hours during the day and otherwise lies unused,” he added.

Over the past seven days, the Ek tha Tiger jingle was played for 11 seconds at a time, during evening peak hours, from 6pm to 10pm. It is played six times an hour, which amounts to 1,848 seconds or 30 minutes and 48 seconds, according to a senior railway official.

“In last seven days we have earned revenue of Rs3.80 lakh through commercial publicity of Ek Tha Tiger,” added the official. In Mumbai, CR earns Rs. 30 crore revenue through various other advertising methods such as vinyl wrapping of trains.

He also said that this is the first time CR has used the PA system for commercial purposes in such a big way. So far, there have been no complaints from passengers.