Yar FM launches its radio app

If you’ve ever been to the Copperbelt you know Yar FM is one of the top radio stations and have taken the lead in innovation by adding a radio app as a touch point for listerners wherever they are in the world.

I downloaded the app (about 21MB) from the Google Play Store to check out its features.

It’s a simple app to use, no need for sign-ins, the main interface page will give you a and  button to play or stop the stream from the Yar FM servers:

Above these buttons are tabs split  into 4 categories: On-Air, Schedule (see image below), Social, Rate Card:

The social tab connects listeners to the digital platforms the radio station has, Facebook and Twitter.

On the home page there is a WhatsApp button that should enable listeners to send messages but when I tried the number embedded was not registered on WhatsApp. That’s pretty much the only glitch with the app so far.

I talked to Sandy Chiluba, Yar FM Head of Programming, on how the app makes their work better, who they’re targeting and how they compare to the competition and he said:

“It’s an integrated ePresence contact point, with less demand on data for users as opposed to the website. The target for the app is anyone with internet access on mobile as it’s the biggest platform for digital communication and presence. Our biggest advantage over our competition is that we have a one stop shop for our audience to interact with hosts and the station. There’s access to our rate card and it also has a feature allowing the station to send dedicated messages to users e.g. tune in now we are chatting with Artist X in 5 mins, redirecting them to click and audio plays all in one touch. 

Apart from all this, Listeners are notified of show changes, new blog posts, Facebook posts, and can also user can set reminder to tune in to specific/favorite shows.”

Vincent Kapembwa, Yar FM’s Station manager added:

“The app is targeted at young listeners mostly who have data bundle access challenges so we simplified the interface and made some pages static for minimal data usage. The app will also be compressed to fewer MBs in the next few days to address the same challenge. In terms of downloads I don’t have an estimate of how many installations we will get by the end of this year but I know our digital media platforms will help the integration process and popularity of the app.”

The Yar FM app is relatively new, being days old,  with about 10-50 installs but I love that that with it, they expanded their reach beyond where their transmitter’s capacity on the Copperbelt.