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76-467: Balaji Patturaj (born 20 June 1985), popularly known as RJ Balaji , is an Indian radio jockey , actor, television presenter, comedian and film director in Chennai , Tamil Nadu. He is best known as the host of the 92.7 Big FM shows The Night Show with RJ Balaji , Take it Easy and its now-defunct segment Cross Talk , in which he made prank calls to unsuspecting victims. Originally a radio jockey, Balaji

152-530: A gaana but was finally selected in November 2006. He has not completed his journalism course since. Balaji started his career as a radio jockey at Radio Mirchi Coimbatore, where he hosted a three-hour morning drive show called Hello Coimbatore which dealt with social issues. After four years he quit the job as he "didn't want to sound angry all the time" and returned to Chennai where his family and friends were living. He joined at 92.7 Big FM because they gave him

228-456: A SoundCloud Go subscription will be more valuable to an artist, supposedly benefiting smaller independent artists with fans who listen to their music frequently. Little is known about how beneficial fan-powered royalties have been for artists, beyond SoundCloud's claims, over the traditional pooled royalties model, which most competing services such as Spotify continue to use. In December 2021, SoundCloud Chief Financial Officer, Drew Wilson, said

304-433: A SoundCloud artist, explained in a Rolling Stone article how the first songs he created and put on the platform were not recorded using a real microphone. The DIY nature of SoundCloud made it so millions of artists were able to put out their work without any studio equipment usually needed to make music. The freedom to upload on the platform allows for many SoundCloud rappers to post tracks impulsively or post many tracks at

380-413: A YouTube channel where he uploads short videos dealing with contemporary issues. The first video uploaded to the channel is "Kai Phone Video 01: RJ Balaji's Biriyani!!!", featuring Balaji distributing parcels of biryani to impoverished people on the road. The second, "Kai Phone Video 02: RJ Balaji's 501 Views Success Party!!!", is a satire on the "success parties" that production companies host to celebrate

456-460: A bachelor's degree had a salary range of $ 19,600–60,400. The salary of a local radio personality will differ from a national radio personality. National personality pay can be in the millions because of the increased audience size and corporate sponsorship. For example, Rush Limbaugh was reportedly paid $ 38 million annually as part of the eight-year $ 400 million contract he signed with Clear Channel Communications. SoundCloud SoundCloud

532-523: A blockbuster at the Tamil Nadu box office. His directorial debut is Mookuthi Amman (2020) with Nayanthara in the lead. He later acted, directed a comedy-drama film, Veetla Vishesham (2022), a remake of 2018 Hindi blockbuster Badhaai Ho . The action thriller Run Baby Run (2023) has received a positive response from audience and is doing well. Balaji was a host in the second season of STAR Vijay 's dance show Ungalil Yaar Adutha Prabhu Dheva . He

608-733: A brief role as a show host in Vallinam (2014). His second film appearance in 2014 was in Vaayai Moodi Pesavum . In 2015, he appeared in Idhu Enna Maayam , Yatchan and Naanum Rowdy Dhaan . For his performance in Naanum Rowdydhaan , Balaji won the SIIMA Award for Best Comedian. In 2016, he appeared in Jil Jung Juk and Pugazh , where he also worked as a singer and lyricist on

684-818: A co-director). He has also been a presenter at many inter-school cultural events in Chennai, a cricket commentator, and has contributed to many social causes, such as providing relief support to the victims of the 2015 South India floods along with other actors. Balaji was born on 20 June, and was raised in Chennai , Tamil Nadu. Parent Name disclosed by him. He has four siblings, one younger brother and three younger sisters. He said that his father abandoned his family at an unspecified point. Balaji told Sudhish Kamath in 2013 that he changed 27 houses and 11 schools while growing up in Chennai because his "mother just cannot stay in one place. She would move from Perambur to Thiruvanmiyur to Mylapore ... no place close to each other." When he

760-475: A higher degree of diversity in its content. The Verge found that, excluding existing content uploaded by users, the service's initial library of songs is smaller than those of its closest competitors. The service was initially priced at US$ 10 per month. On 28 February 2017, SoundCloud renamed its main Go plan SoundCloud Go+ , adding a secondary tier titled SoundCloud Go at a US$ 5 price point, which does not include

836-414: A minor stake in the company, and its publishing division to collect royalties for songs they have chosen to monetize on the site; meanwhile, the other labels remained skeptical of the company's business model. By December 2014, SoundCloud had shared ad revenue with about 60 other Premier Partners. Concerns over the amount of revenue from the program led Sony Music Entertainment to pull its content from

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912-424: A new pay model for artists, entitled "fan-powered royalties", which went into effect on 1 April 2021. Under this new model, royalties come directly from the subscription and advertising revenue that listeners earn for SoundCloud, instead of allotting a certain portion of the total "pool" of revenue earned by SoundCloud to each artist based on streams. This means that a fan who listens to more advertisements or pays for

988-473: A new program known as "On SoundCloud", which would allow "Premier" partners to monetize their content through pre-roll audio ads, channel sponsorships, mobile display ads, and native content. The company announced deals with a number of content partners (including Comedy Central and Funny or Die ), independent labels, and YouTube multi-channel networks , and that it was in "active and ongoing, advanced discussions" with major record labels. In December 2014, it

1064-473: A partnership venture with the company prior to the rebranding. As SoundCloud evolved and expanded beyond its initial user base, consisting primarily of grassroots musicians, many users complained that it had sacrificed its usefulness to independent artists in an attempt to appeal to the masses, perhaps in preparation for public sale. Such criticism particularly followed the launching of a revamped website in 2013 which, according to former CEO Alexander Ljung,

1140-603: A post-high school education, but some do hold degrees in audio engineering . If a radio personality has a degree it's typically a bachelor's degree level qualification in radio-television-film, mass communications, journalism, or English. Universities offer classes in radio broadcasting and often have a college radio station, where students can obtain on-the-job training and course credit . Prospective radio personalities can also intern at radio stations for hands-on training from professionals. Training courses are also available online. A radio personality position generally has

1216-464: A social worker or disaster manager: "I am just someone who wants to help people, and I will just do that." Radio personality A radio personality can be someone who introduces and discusses genres of music; hosts a talk radio show that may take calls from listeners; interviews celebrities or guests; or gives news, weather, sports, or traffic information. The radio personality may broadcast live or use voice-tracking techniques. Increasingly in

1292-630: A three-phased event organised as part of the radio station's Children's Day celebrations. Balaji won the RJ of the Year (Tamil) and Best Programme Broadcast after 11 am (Tamil) awards for Take it Easy at the 2012 Indian Excellence in Radio Awards. Later he was named among the Top 10 Promising Personalities of Tamil Nadu in 2012 by Ananda Vikatan Group. Balaji was the host for the 2013 event "BIG Manasa Thotta Singer" that

1368-525: Is a German audio streaming service owned and operated by SoundCloud Global Limited & Co. KG . The service enables its users to upload , promote , and share audio . Founded in 2007 by Alexander Ljung and Eric Wahlforss, SoundCloud is one of the largest music streaming services in the world and is available in 190 countries and territories. The service has more than 76 million active monthly users and over 200 million audio tracks as of November 2021. SoundCloud offers both free and paid memberships on

1444-410: Is also active in other fields; he is known for his association with the television shows Ungalil Yaar Adutha Prabhu Dheva and Why This Kolaveri , and for his performance in the films Theeya Velai Seiyyanum Kumaru (2013), Vadacurry (2014) Naanum Rowdy Dhaan (2015), Pugazh (2016) and LKG (2019) (as an actor), Mookuthi Amman (2020) and Veetla Vishesham (2022) (as an actor and

1520-428: Is available for US$ 99 per year, and is available globally. In October 2022, SoundCloud announced a new program known as "SoundCloud For Artists", which is a rebranding/merger of Jeff Ponchick's Repost Network which was acquired by SoundCloud in 2019. The company formerly had two divisions of Repost By SoundCloud, Repost and Repost Select. Repost was a paid distribution platform available to the public while Repost Select

1596-537: Is because of him." Cross Talk became very popular among youths; Balaji uploaded several clips of the show on SoundCloud . The links went viral, crossing over a million hits in a single week. Besides India, most of the downloads were in the United States (over 20%), United Arab Emirates , Singapore, Seychelles , Germany and Spain. The show earned him the moniker "Cross Talk Balaji". In November 2011, Balaji and BIG FM RJ's Muthu and Ophelia conducted "Little RJ Hunt",

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1672-584: Is most unlikely to happen. So, '120 show' is no more". He further stated, "I don't want to keep taking my work home. I have a one-and-half-year-old child and my wife is concerned about the phone calls I keep getting". As of July 2014, the show still runs, where he only reviews Hindi and English-language films. In July 2013, Balaji said that he would try remaining a radio jockey for at least 15 years, which he believes "no one has done in Chennai", and reiterated this in November 2015. After India's Minister of Information and Broadcasting Prakash Javadekar told in

1748-480: The Ananda Vikatan Awards for Promising Personality of Tamil Nadu and RJ of the Year. In April 2017, Balaji launched a new BIG FM show titled The Night Show with RJ Balaji . Alongside his radio career, Balaji has been active in other fields as well. He stated, "It is nice to do a lot of things so that you are constantly on your feet". In September 2011, he judged Channel Surfing , a segment of Smaraneeyam ,

1824-536: The National Internet Exchange of India to disseminate village-specific information and create an identity for villages. In March 2014, he claimed to have been a presenter at Sangarsh , an annual charity concert that raises money for people suffering from various diseases. The same month, he gave an intro in " The Madras Song ", a tribute to the 375th anniversary of Chennai, formerly known as Madras. In November 2014, Balaji created "Panjumittai Productions",

1900-705: The Rajya Sabha that legal action would be taken against radio jockeys who ridicule members of parliament, Balaji in August 2014 cryptically told Deccan Chronicle , "When I was a teenager I would fight with my sister for a room. Today parliamentarians are doing the same thing, fighting like teenagers. How can I not make fun of them?", while fearing that even television anchors like Arnab Goswami and Rajdeep Sardesai would be banned soon. In January 2015, Balaji, radio jockeys Girigiri, Ananthi, Mirdhula and actor R. Sarathkumar contributed to "Kodu Kondadu", an initiative by BIG FM and

1976-485: The pro-Jalikattu protests . From the following year, he began working as a Tamil cricket commentator for the Indian Premier League . Balaji describes "nonsense humour and nonstop talking" as his unique selling proposition . He also describes conversation as his strength and states that his humour comes out of talking to people. Although he frequently talks about films on the radio, he never entertains gossip on

2052-523: The 1950s, '60s and '70s, radio DJs exerted considerable influence on popular music, especially during the Top 40 radio era, because of their ability to introduce new music to the radio audience and promote or control which songs would be given airplay. Although radio personalities who specialized in news or talk programs such as Dorothy Kilgallen and Walter Winchell have existed since the early days of radio, exclusive talk radio formats emerged and multiplied in

2128-983: The 1960s, as telephone call in shows, interviews, news, and public affairs became more popular. In New York, WINS (AM) switched to a talk format in 1965, and WCBS (AM) followed two years later. Early talk radio personalities included Bruce Williams and Sally Jesse Raphael . The growth of sports talk radio began in the 1960s, and resulted in the first all-sports station in the US, WFAN (AM) that would go on to feature many sports radio personalities such as Marv Albert and Howie Rose . Notable radio personalities include pop music radio hosts Wolfman Jack , Jim Pewter , Dick Clark , Casey Kasem , John Peel , Charlie Gillett , Walt Love , Alan Freed , Mamy Baby , Frida Amani , The Real Don Steele and Charlie Tuna ; sports talk hosts such as Mike Francesa ; shock jocks and political talk hosts such as Don Imus , Howard Stern and Rush Limbaugh . Many radio personalities do not have

2204-418: The 2010s, radio personalities are expected to supplement their on-air work by posting information online, such as on a blog or on another web forum. This may be either to generate additional revenue or connect with listeners. With the exception of small or rural radio stations, much of music radio broadcasting is done by broadcast automation , a computer-controlled playlist airing MP3 audio files which contain

2280-630: The 2015 edition of Techofes at the Guindy College of Engineering, he hosted a new show titled Boost with Balaji on 14 February. In Puthagam (2013), Balaji introduces the lead characters played by Sathya , Sanjay, Vignesh, Rakul Preet Singh and Aishwarya Rajesh in a voice-over. In the same year, he made a cameo appearance in Ethir Neechal and made his full-fledged acting debut in Theeya Velai Seiyyanum Kumaru . He appeared in

2356-551: The Rapper is an example of a SoundCloud artist who broke the mould of the industry; he released his debut mixtape, 10 Day , on SoundCloud. In a Vanity Fair interview Chance explained how he decided against signing to a major label and felt it was better for him to give his music "without any limit on it". Through SoundCloud, a sub-genre of rap was created. Artists such as Lil Pump , XXXTentacion , Juice Wrld , Nav , Lil Uzi Vert , Playboi Carti , Trippie Redd , 6ix9ine , Ski Mask

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2432-618: The Slump God , Suicideboys and Lil Peep originated from SoundCloud and have since risen to the Billboard top charts. The sound created was different from the mainstream, with a grittier and darker sound that results from a lack of production. SoundCloud rap is a lo-fi, melody driven, distorted sound with lyrics that usually focus on repetition and less on content. The SoundCloud artists themselves are known to have exaggerated appearances that include bright colored hair and face tattoos. Smokepurpp ,

2508-490: The apparent box office success of their films. The third video, subtitled "RJ Balaji Abusing Sachin Tendulkar..!", has nothing to do with Sachin Tendulkar , but instead features Balaji asking the viewers to spread word so that a heart transplant patient named Kavya could get a heart donor. The video was deliberately titled misleadingly so that the message would spread sooner. On 12 December, less than two weeks after Balaji uploaded

2584-623: The company had acquired the Singapore based music AI company Musiio, with the aims of increasing features on the site such as discovery features. A new APN was released in December 2012 which improved mobile device support and added features such as concurrent listening, site navigation, and the ability to create personal collections. At this time, SoundCloud was reported to be "reaching 180 million people per month", with 10 hours of content being uploaded per minute. SoundCloud offers two mobile apps ;

2660-425: The company have claimed this to be "bogus," arguing that the right to manage and delete accounts should be reserved to SoundCloud itself, not to an outside company. SoundCloud first entered the music streaming industry as a new way for artists to share and promote their music. As an online platform, artists can release music without a record label or distributor. SoundCloud users are both listeners and artists, using

2736-466: The company is "at the doorsteps of break-even" and said the company expects to generate a net profit by 2023. The rise in popularity of SoundCloud Rap (a.k.a. "mumble rap") and ability for new artists to gain popularity helped SoundCloud gain enough users to continue business. Compared to other streaming services, SoundCloud is an interactive platform, which contributes to the artist being able to gain popularity. In August 2014, SoundCloud announced

2812-420: The deal would give the company an option to require certain content to be restricted to paid subscribers, a statement suggesting that SoundCloud was preparing to launch its own subscription streaming service. In February 2017, SoundCloud launched a mid-range subscription tier named SoundCloud Go, that allows users to remove ads and listen offline for $ US5 per month through the site. The original version, which

2888-584: The entire program consisting of music, commercials, and a radio announcer's pre-recorded comments. In the past, the term " disc jockey " (or "DJ") was exclusively used to describe on-air radio personalities who played recorded music and hosted radio shows that featured popular music. Unlike the modern club DJ who uses beatmatching to mix transitions between songs to create continuous play, radio DJs played individual songs or music tracks while voicing announcements, introductions, comments, jokes, and commercials in between each song or short series of songs. During

2964-561: The event Mr. and Ms. Techofes at the College of Engineering, Guindy 's annual cultural event Techofes twice, in 2012 and 2013. He was also the compère of the audio launch of Kalyana Samayal Saadham , which took place in August 2013. In July 2013, Balaji was the judge of Reflector , an event in Vidya Mandir 's interschool cultural event Reflections. On 30 August, he was a judge at Padma Seshadri Bala Bhavan 's cultural event Reverberations. At

3040-590: The floods' victims, through a movement known as "Chennai Micro". For his actions, Balaji received the CNN-News18 Indian of the Year award in the category of "Public Service". In January, Balaji was featured in "The Most Important Job", a four-minute video by the Murugappa Group that pays tribute to Indian farmers. Following the March 2016 suicide of Abhinath, a student of Sri Sai Ram Engineering College whose suicide

3116-420: The following requirements: Due to radio personalities' vocal training, opportunities to expand their careers often exist. Over time a radio personality could be paid to do voice-overs for commercials, television shows, and movies. Radio personality salaries are influenced by years of experience and education. In 2013, the median salary of a radio personality in the US was $ 28,400. A radio personality with

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3192-489: The freedom to plan and design his four-hour slot; thus the show Take it Easy was conceived. The evening prime-time show was created to give people a "break from the serious stuff that they have to deal with during work hours and relax with the nonsense". Balaji created another segment in Take it Easy , titled Cross Talk , where he made prank calls to unsuspecting victims, nominated by a friend, cousin, co-worker or neighbour. On how

3268-481: The inter-school cultural festival of Sri Sankara Senior Secondary School. Balaji was a performer at Sri Sivasubramaniya Nadar College of Engineering 's annual cultural festival Instincts in March 2012. He hosted the teaser trailer release event for Maattrraan in June 2012. In August 2012, Balaji was a guest performer at the fourth anniversary celebrations of Kiruthiga Udhayanidhi 's magazine Inbox 1305 . He has conducted

3344-464: The investment, veteran digital media operators Kerry Trainor and Michael Weissman joined the SoundCloud team respectively as chief executive officer and Chief Operating Officer. Alexander Ljung and Eric Wahlforss remained with the company—Ljung as chairman of the board, and Wahlforss as Chief Product Officer until 2019, when Wahlforss transitioned into an advisory role. In May 2022, SoundCloud announced

3420-514: The licensed music library but still offers ad-free and offline playback. SoundCloud Go+ offers mix tracks for certain DJ apps, has a complete catalogue, and has 256 kbit/s streaming. SoundCloud offers premium services for musicians with their Next Pro service. With Next Pro, subscribers can upload unlimited audio files, access enhanced analytics, distribute their music to other streaming platforms, and access tools to reach larger audiences. This service

3496-525: The main SoundCloud app is oriented towards streaming, with music discovery, playlist, and sharing features. In November 2015, its separate app known as SoundCloud Pulse was released for Android and iOS; it is primarily oriented towards content creators, allowing users to upload and manage their uploads, reply to comments, and view statistics. By the end of 2016, SoundCloud Pulse had over 100 million downloads. In July 2020, SoundCloud introduced Insights into its mobile app, discontinuing SoundCloud Pulse. Through

3572-451: The matter of unauthorized, copyrighted material regularly appearing on the platform. The announcement followed a round of funding in which US$ 60 million was raised, resulting in a $ 700 million valuation. According to media sources, the negotiations were initiated in an attempt to avoid similar problems faced by Google , which had been forced to handle a large number of take down notices on its YouTube video-sharing platform. In May 2015, it

3648-406: The media, Balaji has also maintained a "rather soft-spoken, shy" personality. In a 2013 interview, Balaji said that he inherited his sense of humour from his mother, who he called "the funniest person I know ... I have only 10 percent of her comic ability". Balaji was married at the age of 21 years, and has two sons. Although known to actively perform social services, Balaji does not consider himself

3724-404: The new Insights portal all users can see their top listener, top city, top country and top 50 tracks, while Pro Unlimited subscribers have access to their top 50 everything (listeners, cities, countries, and tracks). In April 2017, Chromecast support was added to the main SoundCloud iOS app. On 29 March 2016, SoundCloud unveiled SoundCloud Go, a subscription-based music streaming service ;

3800-558: The non-governmental organisation BHUMI to supply impoverished children with stationery, toys and books. In February, he was a host of the BIG Tamil Melody Awards at Chennai Trade Centre . In July 2015, Balaji launched a new show titled Loose Talk . The following month, he left with many other Indian RJs for Siachen to conduct a program titled "BIG Paigham – Sarhad Ke Naam" saluting the Indian Army . In January 2016, he won

3876-475: The personal life of actors, due to his lack of interest in the same. He is notorious for his attacks on the English language and his jocular criticism of Tamil films, but popular for his irreverent sense of unique humour. According to photographer Bhargavii Mani of The Hindu , the frequent echoing of the words "Ada" and "Cha" on Balaji's radio shows make them "exciting". Although known to be vivacious, loud and funny in

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3952-586: The platform and facilitate either takedowns or ads being run against it. In July 2016, SoundCloud notified registered users via email that it would be "phasing out" groups because they "were not a strong driver to help users share their new tracks to the most users effectively". This announcement was met with alarm and concerned responses from numerous artists, who deemed the change unacceptable because it would eliminate their only effective means of sharing music on SoundCloud. SoundCloud has also been criticized for changes in service. The anti-piracy algorithm — which

4028-450: The platform together, creating a community focused space. Features that enable users to comment, like, and share songs allows the platform to operate as a social media site rather than a streaming service. In 2018, the Grammys began to recognize artists and their music on SoundCloud. The shift from The Recording Academy was thanks to the popularity of the platform and their artists. Chance

4104-455: The platform, available for mobile , desktop and Xbox devices. SoundCloud has evolved from a traditional online streaming platform to an entertainment company. SoundCloud was established in Berlin on August 27, 2007, by Swedish sound designer Alexander Ljung and Swedish electronic musician Eric Wahlforss, and the website was launched on October 17, 2008. Later that year, Rapper Kid Cudi posted

4180-492: The platform. The initial evaluation of SoundCloud at $ 700 million did not hold as strong to investors after their financial shortages. In July 2017, SoundCloud announced layoffs and the closure of two of its five offices in San Francisco and London in an effort to manage costs. In August 2017, SoundCloud announced it reached an agreement on a $ 169.5 million investment from The Raine Group and Temasek . In connection with

4256-514: The segment 120 Rs. on his show where he reviewed Tamil films after he had been severely criticised by actors and producers from the Tamil film industry. Via Twitter, he announced, "I am a normal guy who wants to do good work every day and go home happy. I can't really handle the aftermath of every show on films. After a lot of thought, I have decided not to speak about films until there's tolerance and maturity among certain people from film fraternity, which

4332-525: The segment developed, Balaji said, "I was assigned to do a serious socially-relevant show in the beginning but Big [FM] gave me the chance to talk about anything in Take It Easy . Once when I was talking to a couple about something serious, people who listened found it funny. That's how Cross Talk happened". Balaji described Radio Mirchi's Senthil Kumar , who taught him a radio and its basics at Coimbatore, as his favourite RJ, and said, "whatever I am right now

4408-570: The service entirely in May 2015. In June 2015, SoundCloud announced that it had reached a deal with the Merlin Network , a group representing 20,000 independent record labels, to monetize their content through the Premier partner program. In January and March 2016, SoundCloud reached respective deals with Universal Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment. A UMG spokesperson told The New York Times that

4484-421: The service provides an ad-free experience, offline playback, and integrates licensed music from major labels into the existing, user-uploaded content of the service. Co-founder Eric Wahlforss stated that this aspect would help to differentiate SoundCloud Go from other music streaming services such as Spotify and Apple Music , as it technically provides a larger total library of songs than competing services, with

4560-452: The song "Podu Podu". In Muthina Kathirika (2016), Balaji introduces the main characters, including protagonist Muthupandi ( Sundar C ) through a voiceover. He then appeared in Devi , Kadavul Irukaan Kumaru (2016), Parandhu Sella Vaa (2016), Kaatru Veliyidai (2017), Spyder (2017) and Kee (2017). RJ Balaji became a full-fledged hero with LKG (2019). The film has emerged as

4636-644: The video for his track " Soundtrack 2 My Life ", then got replaced to YouTube in 2012. It was originally intended to allow musicians to collaborate by facilitating the sharing and discussion of recordings, but later transformed into a publishing tool for music distribution. According to Wired magazine, soon after its inception, SoundCloud began to challenge the dominance of Myspace as a platform for musicians to distribute their music. In April 2009, SoundCloud received €2.5 million Series A funding from Doughty Hanson Technology Ventures . In May 2010, SoundCloud announced it had one million users. In January 2011, it

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4712-504: The video, Kavya successfully got a donor. Balaji has also played in the 2015 edition of the Celebrity Cricket League , for the team Chennai Rhinos as an all-rounder . In May 2015, he was a speaker at the first edition of TEDx Mylapore. In August, he joined Ananda Vikatan and Raghava Lawrence 's campaign "Aram Seiya Virumbu". During the 2015 South India floods , Balaji and actor Siddharth provided relief support to many of

4788-445: Was asked to write a report on his hostel's canteen, the 56-word report contained 47 grammatical errors, and he soon realised that English journalism was not what he was interested in. At that time he saw a newspaper advertisement of a radio station ( Radio Mirchi Coimbatore) that auditioned for radio jockeys and he applied for it, though he "never knew what an RJ was back then". He said that he almost did not get selected then when he sang

4864-458: Was attributed by the college's authorities to him being unhappy about studying engineering, and protesting students claiming it to be the result of his treatment by the authorities, a video of a speech by Balaji was released in the internet; in that speech he urged corporate firms to "go beyond pass percentages and exam results when choosing colleges for campus recruitments". The video received over 180,000 views. In January 2017, Balaji participated in

4940-413: Was conducted by BIG FM. He has also been running the "RJ Balaji Skool of Radio Studies" since August 2013. Three apps on Balaji have been developed: an Android app simply named "RJ Balaji", an iOS app titled "RJ Balaji Official", and a Windows Phone app as well. In December 2012, Balaji discontinued Cross Talk , in response to the suicide of Jacintha Saldanha . In November 2013, he decided to stop

5016-435: Was considering to buy SoundCloud. On 8 December 2016, Spotify was reported to have abandoned its acquisition plans. In February 2019, SoundCloud reported having surpassed 200 million sound tracks, four times as many as Myspace had. In May 2019, SoundCloud bought artist distribution platform Repost Network. In January 2020, a US$ 75 million investment by Sirius XM was announced. On 2 March 2021, SoundCloud announced

5092-431: Was implemented for the purpose of increasing SoundCloud usage. On 3 July 2014, TorrentFreak reported that SoundCloud offered unlimited removal powers to certain copyright holders, allowing those copyright holders to unilaterally remove paid subscribers' content without recourse. In April 2015, SoundCloud announced a new partnership with Zefr, a content tracking company that works with YouTube to help identify songs on

5168-734: Was in college, Balaji realised that his strength was in interaction and that the attention and acclaim he received in his college cultural gave him confidence and he realised that he had to be in the media. After completing his BSc computer science from the Kumararani Meena Muthiah College of Arts in 2006, Balaji joined the Amrita School of Communication in Coimbatore for a Postgraduate Diploma in Journalism, because he wanted to become like his cousin who worked at NDTV , but when he

5244-607: Was increasing by 1.5 million users per month. In March 2014, Twitter announced it would partner with SoundCloud in developing its first integrated music app. However, the project never moved forward because SoundCloud was unable to accommodate licensed music due to a lack of necessary arrangements with music labels. In July 2013, SoundCloud had 40 million registered users and new users were joining at 20 million per month. SoundCloud announced in January 2014 that it had commenced licensing negotiations with major music companies to address

5320-466: Was put into place to combat the number of illegal music downloads — has often been criticized for taking down music that was not illegally submitted or downloaded. Also, Universal Music Group has the right to take down any files on SoundCloud. Uploads can be taken down directly by Universal Music Group outside of SoundCloud's anti-piracy policy. Other than uploads, Universal Music Group has the ability to take down accounts, both premium and free. Customers of

5396-422: Was renamed to SoundCloud Go+, allows access to (at the time) over 150 million songs, offline playback, no ads, no previews, and premium music tracks for $ US10 per month through the site. Both subscriptions were categorized for listeners, with separate subscription services provided specifically for creators. In Spring 2017, SoundCloud initially faced being sold after not raising the $ 100 million needed to support

5472-442: Was reported that SoundCloud could potentially raise approximately US$ 150 million in new financing, resulting in a valuation surpassing one billion dollars. The major label issue became prominent again when the new financing information was released, as the lack of monetization was presented as an issue—SoundCloud signed an agreement with Warner Music Group as part of the new Premier program that allows both Warner Music, which also has

5548-410: Was reported that SoundCloud had raised US$ 10 million Series B funding from Union Square Ventures and Index Ventures . On 15 June 2011, SoundCloud reported five million registered users and investments from Ashton Kutcher and Guy Oseary 's A-Grade Fund, and on 23 January 2012, it reported 10 million registered users. In May 2012, it was announced that SoundCloud had 15 million users, and site usage

5624-547: Was reported that Twitter was considering the acquisition of SoundCloud for approximately US$ 2 billion. However, the prospect of acquisition was discounted by the media, with one report stating that "the numbers didn't add up", and Bobby Owsinski hypothesizing on the Forbes website in July that SoundCloud's ongoing inability to secure deals with the major music labels was the foremost culprit. On 28 September 2016, Spotify announced that it

5700-413: Was the dedicated label services department that provided label services such as marketing, funding and music distribution for artists that signed with SoundCloud directly/independent labels that have partnerships with SoundCloud. In July 2022 SoundCloud A&R Cameron Cox carried out a distribution deal with Sohaib Ali and Alontae Lloyd's BlondeWorld Label which is the first independent label to enter into

5776-567: Was the host of Zee Tamizh 's Why This Kolaveri , a loose adaptation of the American reality show Killer Karaoke , which premiered in December 2013, and ended in May 2014. In August 2014, Balaji hosted the show Aiyo Amma Awards , a spoof of the Vijay Awards , on Zee Tamizh. In December 2011, Balaji participated in "Namma Ooru Website Creation Competition", an initiative jointly organised by IIT Madras ' Rural Technology and Business Incubator and

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