Music revenues Stream ahead

After decades of inactivity, the growth in Indian recorded music industry revenues seems to be showing some hope of a much-needed revival. As per recent surveys, this industry’s revenues grew by almost 26 percent in 2016, securing the 19th rank worldwide in sales and outdoing the global industry’s humble 5.9 percent. In addition, reports by FICCI/KPMG indicate that this industry is expected to grow to Rs 2,060 crore by 2020.

This growth in the revenue model may be attributed to the ways in which audiences consume music in today’s digital age. With media (read Cassettes/CD/DVDs) long dead and Digital music streaming dominating music consumption habits of Indian consumers, the music industry continues to evolve with model revenues, which are in harmony with the consumption habits.

According to reports, with music streaming in India achieving a record volume two years ago, of 50-60 million active monthly users, streaming apps now account for a major chunk (more than 70%) of the total revenues generated by the music industry and this number is only expected to rise significantly over the next few years.

Following a deal with Warner Music Group to add “millions of soundtracks” to its upcoming music streaming service - Amazon Prime Music, in a recent move, Amazon signed a deal with Times Music to add 25,000 tracks to its service.

This is the seventh such deal by Amazon India over the past two months to beef up its ad-free music streaming service that will be available to Amazon Prime subscribers at no additional cost. Earlier deals include music labels like Tips Music, Sony Music, Saregama, Zee Music Company and Venus Music.

Prime Music, launched as a benefit under its Prime service at no additional cost, will house music across Bollywood and the other labels’ catalogue of music, which includes international artists like Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson, Beyonce, Camila Cabello, The Chainsmokers, Martin Garrix, Pharrel Williams, among others.

With this move, Amazon is getting a good grip on the market among some already established players, such as Gaana, Saavan and Wynk Music.

While streaming services witness heavy traffic for Bollywood songs and International music, the surprise element for the industry comes in the form of regional music. Though Bollywood has a lion’s share in this market, what cannot be ignored is the rise in regional music downloads, with Tamil, Telugu, Punjabi and Kannada accounting for the bulk of the growth in regional content. Bharti Airtel’s Wynk Music recently reported that about 13 per cent of its active users came in from rural India, contributing nearly 10 per cent to the overall daily streams.

Prime Music too will provide access to South Indian Films and other regional languages and genres like Pop, Sufi, Indie, evergreen songs, ghazals, regional classics, Hindustani, Carnatic and devotional music besides Bollywood and International Music. The All India Radio (AIR), the national public radio broadcaster of India, and one of the largest media organisations in the world, which reaches out to almost 100% of the Indian population through hundreds of its broadcasting Centres has also jumped on to the bandwagon.

AIR has teamed up with Amazon Echo service, wherein people from all over the world can tune into AIR by giving a voice command. However, listeners need to buy the ‘Echo’ device from Amazon’s e-commerce platform to avail of this service.

Meanwhile, a group of the industry representing composers, lyricists and music publishers has initiated the process of seeking royalties from Indian telecom companies and platforms such as Apple and YouTube for the use of their works, including songs and music made available for streaming and downloads.

The Mumbai based IPRS has sent notices to carriers including Bharti Airtel, Vodafone, Idea Cellular and Reliance Jio to sign licensing agreements with them for collecting royalties. According to Rakesh Nigam, CEO of IPRS letters were sent to all these telcos asking them to obtain license for literary and musical works, sound recordings and cinematographic film that IPRS owns as part of the value added services offered by them. He said that while the society has not made any monetary demands, it has set royalty rates for 48 categories of music used in places including airports, amusement parks, clubs, factories and on-demand streaming services

Apple, which has iTunes and other telecos did not respond to ET’s queries and at the time of going to press these companies had scheduled a meet with IPRS in the third week of February.

Just when PT was pondering about the ‘mundane-ity’ of listing the top ten Bollywood music tracks trending on the various music charts and that this exercise is becoming as ordinary as the supposed ‘hit’ tracks Bollywood is churning out, we were pleasantly surprised. Surprised not that the tracks were ‘par excellence’, but surprised that after months we had a top ten chart with fewer remixes of old songs; whew! Wonder if we will ever have a chart with no remixes at all; just refreshingly, fresh and new music!

Still hogging the limelight is “Dil Diyan Gallan” from Tiger Zinda Hai recorded at YRF Studios, followed by Amit Trivedi’s “Aaj Se Teri” from Padman Recorded at A T Studios, Mumbai by Abhishek Sortey and Urmila Sutar, assisted by Firoz Shaikh and Mixed by Shadab Rayeen at A T Studios & New Edge Studios, Mumbai, assisted by Abhishek Sortey and Dhananjay Khapekar. The track is mastered by Donal Whelan at Masteringworld, U.K.

The track, which is here to stay – “Swag Se Swagat” from Tiger Zinda Hai is on number three. Recorded by Vijay Dayal at YRF Studios, the tracked has been Mastered by Donal Whelan at Mastering World, UK.

Recorded, Mixed & Mastered by Tanay Gajjar at Wow & Flutter Studio, the “Ghoomar” Song from Padmaavat holds fort at number four, while “Ek Dil Ek Jaan” from the same movie is on number eight.

Three of the balance five songs on the list have been lapped up by the yet to be released Romcom - Sonu Ke Titu Ki Sweety. On number five is the recreated version of yesteryear’s chartbuster “Dil Chori Sada Ho Gaya” originally sung by Hans Raj Hans. The new version sung by Honey Singh has been Mixed and Mastered by Vinod Verma.

Recorded by Rahul Sharma (AMV Studios) and Amey Londe and Vincent Joseph (Audiogarage Studios), “Subah Subha” is on number seven, while the recently added “Bom Diggy Diggy” track - a direct adaption of Zack Knight’s track, enters the top ten charts on number nine. Both the tracks have been Mixed & Mastered by Eric Pillai at Future Sound of Bombay, with Michael Edwin Pillai and Lucky as Mix Assistants.

On number eight is Sunidhi Chauhan’s soulful rendition of “Lae Dooba” from the film Aiyaary. The vocals have been recorded by Manasi Tare (supervised by Shantanu Hudlikar) at YRF Studios, while Guitars were recorded by Pankaj Bohra at Neo Sound, Percussion recorded by Alok Punjani at Studio208 and additional guitars and vocals recorded at Rochak Kohli Music Studio. The track is Mixed and Mastered by Shadaab Rayeen at New Edge studios with Abhishek Sortey and Dhananjay Khapekar as mix assistants.

Clinging on to the number ten position is “Ban Ja Tu Meri Rani” from Tumhari Sulu, Mixed and Mastered by Shadab Rayeen

With a slew of big starrer movies like Pari, Hichki, Manikarnika: The Queen of Jhansi, Veere Di Wedding and the Sanjay Dutt biopic slated for release in the next couple of months, PT hopes that the music industry will come out of the time warp it is currently stuck in and put rehashed music to rest. Signing off for now with a hope to report on the ‘return of melody’ in future issues of the magazine!