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Tag: Mandar Thakur

  • Thoughts Leaders To Discuss The Business Of Music and Emerging Trends in Music Consumption at Music Inc 2.0

    Thoughts Leaders To Discuss The Business Of Music and Emerging Trends in Music Consumption at Music Inc 2.0

    Mumbai: Music Inc 2.0, which is set to take place in Mumbai on 21st and 22nd June 2019 at JW Marriott Juhu, Mumbai, promises to offer never before experience when it comes to content, speaker line up, workshops and master classes around the business of music.

    The two day conference will bring together thought leaders from the music, brand and experiential domains who will share insights on topics ranging from–The Role of Technology and Data in Music Design, Rise in Creative Entrepreneurship, Building Festival Experiences and Building The Hip Hop Ecosystem in India. And that is not all. There will also be discussions round —How to Grow Your Business Using Music, Sports and Music, OTT Platforms and Music, Music and Tourism and Automobile Industry and Music.

    The conference will also have exclusive workshops and master classes curated by some of the top names in the music and experiential space. Live performances and fireside chats and keynotes by global thought will be another highlight of this two day conference.

    Some of the speakers this year include names like Oscar winning music producer, Arthur Pingrey – along with India’s leading rap artist Raftaar, renowned Hindustani classical vocalist Shubha Mudgal, quirky YouTube star Prajakta Koli, Bollywood composer Tanishk Bagchi, independent music scene’s star composer singer Ankur Tewari, singer Dhvani Bhanushali,  film critic Rajeev Masand,  cultural ambassador Zila Khan,  Grammy award winner Ricky Kej,  Mahindra’s Group CEO Vivek Nayar, Lydia Buthello, Ex VP, Brand Experience and Events, Star India, well known singers Papon and Tony Kakkar to name a few.

    Industry leaders like Prashan Agarwal (CEO, Gaana), Amarjit Singh Batra (Managing Director at Spotify India), Mandar Thakur (COO, Times Music), Blaise Fernandes (President at Indian Music Industry), Gurpreet Singh (Co-Founder at One Digital Entertainment), Neeraj Roy (Managing Director – Hungama), Sabbas Joseph (Co-Founder & Director, Wizcraft), Lloyd Mathias (Former Marketing Head APAC – HP) and more, and companies including Universal Music, Sony Music, Spotify, Gaana, OneDigital Entertainment, Zee Entertainment, Gracenote (Neilson), Hungama, Havells will also be present at this conference.

    Another highlight of the event will be unveiling of Gully Life: The Story of Divine is an in-depth documentary on one of India’s favourite rappers. Produced by Red Bull Media House in association with Supari Studios, the film traces the rise of Vivian Fernandes, aka Divine, from his humble beginnings in Mumbai to global superstardom.

    Over the course of the fifty-minute-long film, viewers are introduced to some of the most important people in Divine’s life – from his mother, with whom he is especially close, to the friends he grew up with and who remain his closest aides – and taken on his remarkable journey, evolving from a teenager discovering hip-hop to the icon he is today.

    In all, the two day conference will be the melting pot of art, culture and conversations centered on brand building using music as a core tenant. 

  • The era of regional music dawns in India

    The era of regional music dawns in India

    MUMBAI: From Guru Randhawa dominating music charts or DJs belting out Zingaat , one thing’s for sure – the wave of regional music has well and truly arrived in India. No wonder, making headway into the Indian regional market seems to be every broadcasters latest target.

    The overall music genre on Indian television has been an under-indexed genre (in terms of advertising revenues) for a very long time. The genre commands a mere three to four per cent of the total TV advertising revenue against a six to seven per cent it contributes to the total TV viewership impressions. While ITV network recently launched a Punjabi music channel, the regional music space in general is yet to pick up pace in terms of its business.

    Times Music COO Mandar Thakur says the regional space is massive and growing, attributing 20-23 per cent odd share to it. He adds that audiences prefer Punjabi, Telegu, Tamil, Bhojpuri, Bengali and Oriya music. “Some languages are developing like Marathi etc.,” he said.

    Commenting on the same, Travelxp CEO Prashant Chothani, who has Bengali, Bhojpuri and Marathi music channels under his company’s umbrella, says “South music channels are also strong, wherein if you see in North, Bengali and Marathi languages are very prominent. As you know, we have a Bhojpuri music channel as well, so the Bhojpuri audience is scattered everywhere like in Mumbai, Punjab, Gujarat and all over India.”

    According to the media reports, Network18, COO, Avinash Kaul said that regional is dominating the entire space. “We have around 270 regional channels out of 500 channels overall in BARC. The regional viewership is higher than the Hindi viewership and has a market share of 47 per cent. General entertainment channels (GEC) being the biggest attraction, regional GECs have 30 per cent more viewership than Hindi GECs. If we take a look at the advertisers, the regional market has seen an increase of 20 per cent in the last two years and around 3500 advertisers are exclusive to the regional market.”

    When it comes to the preference of Indian audiences towards regional music over Hindi music channels, choices and topicality matter a great deal.

    Chothani feels one cannot compare two markets. He says, “If you look at Bengali and ask whether or not Bengali music channel is doing well in comparison to GEC, the answer is yes. Is the Marathi music channel doing well in comparison to Marathi gec? The answer is yes.”
    According to him if the regional and film industry is active, the local culture will be intact.

    He further adds, “For example, there is no Guajarati music channel, we know that it took time to start, it has just been a while that it started to make movies, but there are no known singers in Guajarati market. Moreover, audiences have a mindset; they consume more of Hindi music rather than Gujarati music, whereas in other regional markets such as Bengali, they want to consume content of their language, so in HSM market there are 3-4 languages where there is an affinity that I want to consume content of my language in preference to Hindi.”  

    Given the influence of digital platforms these days, Thakur says everything works on a smart phone and competes with it. “It’s about the future of music TV v/s Internet / mobile streaming of video: not about regional channels v/s the smart phone”.

    Chothani feels linear TV is where you push your content to the consumers, whereas OTT is a place where audience will pull content. “A consumer goes to the app and finds the content, but how does he come to know about it? You will see traction on digital once you have consumed that content on television. If you go by BARC data, linear tv content consumption is also increasing. If both OTT and TV consumption is growing, it is good for the business,” he says

    Talking about the sustainability of the music genre, Sri Adhikari Brothers (SAB) group CEO Manav Dhanda, who has ‘Mailboli’, a Marathi music channel under his company’s umbrella, has said in the past that his regional channels are growing at 18-19 per cent and HSM is growing at about 14-15 per cent. “I don’t see sustainability to be a problem in the genre. It is about being a serious player. Rather, this is a low entry and high yield genre.”

    The regional music industry has been under-indexed in terms of advertising revenues.
    “The 10-sec ad rate falls in the range of Rs 100 to 1000 Rs. It depends on the popularity of channel. Regional music channel is actually very under priced, if you look at advertising rates, they are severely under priced,” a media expert informs us.

    The regional music space does seem to have a wide scope for growth. But, considering the influence of digital platforms these days, it would be interesting to observe how music channels in general will compete in a tricky market place. 

    Also Read:

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  • Channel V: A walk down memory lane

    Channel V: A walk down memory lane

    MUMBAI: As the curtains draw to bring an end to Channel V, not getting nostalgic is not easy. After years of struggling to find its way out of the rut-in search of viewers and trying to please the bean counters-the time to hang up the boots hasn’t come a moment too soon.

    The real joy, however, lies in a good story and the story of Channel V’s birth is as interesting as it gets.

    The genesis of the channel is in the falling out between Star and Viacom, which had come together to bring MTV to the country. Star wanted to localise the content while MTV preferred to continue with its focus on international music. Channel V, Star’s response to MTV, began producing original Indian content with a host of fresh faces, such as Sophiya Haque and Kamal Sidhu, as video jockeys in 1994.

    What really made Channel V tick were its people. Ed Sharples was the first general manager of the channel while Shashanka Ghosh stepped in as its creative director. The channel’s biggest legacy is that it introduced Indian pop to the youth. It became a platform for home-grown bands such as Euphoria and Uday Benegal-led Indus Creed and was played a big role in them reaching cult status.

    When we spoke to Mandar Thakur, who was the head of music and music/talent industry relations, he had many interesting anecdotes to share. Giving us an inside view of the operations, he spoke effusively of the wild ride that Channel V was and why it became an icon for the generation from the nineties.

    Quite remarkably, Rupert Murdoch-led Star gave the heads of channel complete liberty to chase creative excellence. Therefore, the period between 1994 and 2000 turned out to be the golden age for the channel. “We never chased money and our complete focus was on the quality of the programming,” says Thakur.

    One of the channel’s landmark properties was the Channel V Billboard Awards. The awards saw the participation of the top-flight Indian talent as well as the big international artists of the time such as No Doubt, with a few Bollywood celebrities thrown in for good measure.

    “For close to a month before the launch, the channel was called the next generation of music internally,” says Thakur, who was based in Hong Kong in 1994 and was one of the first employees.

    The offices of the channel moved around—from Colaba (close to Radio Bhavan) to Lamington to Khar 14th road (the Channel V bungalow, which became a Mumbai Darshan attraction) to Star India’s offices in Lower Parel. The bungalow was the scene of many a loud party.

    During its hey days, the channel launched several iconic campaigns. The channel introduced quirky characters like Quick Gun Murrugan—a spoof on Indian western movies, created in 1994 during the launch of the channel—and was featured in its promos. The character eventually spawned a movie in 2009, directed by Ghosh. The Udham Singh Show, anchored by VJ Manish Makhija in Hariyanvi style, with groovy rap and a hip hop rendition of Meri bhains ko danda kyon maara was all the rage in the nineties. And who can forget the much-loved Lola Kutty, Anu Menon’s exaggerated portrayal of a Mallu housewife?

    Oh, nostalgia is the drug!

    A fight for eyeballs

    It was the rivalry between MTV and Channel V that made it all worthwhile. The tug-of-war got the competitive juices flowing on both sides. For instance, when MTV got Ricky Martin to India, Channel V managed to go one up on its counterpart by ambushing the pop star at the airport with welcome signs, following him all the way to the hotel. “It’s what we would call the perfect gorilla campaign. They got Martin to India but we got the mileage,” reminisces Thakur.

    Even at the peak of its influence, however, the channel couldn’t quite set the cash registers ringing for Star. In search of the moolah came some decisions that took the channel away from its core audience. As a direct result, some of the sharpest minds left the channel beginning early 2000. In 2001, Thakur himself left citing creative differences.

    “The channel was on top because it addressed issues and the stuff that the youth really enjoyed,” says Ghosh. “Television in India hadn’t seen that kind of humour before,” adds Ghosh.

    In search of greener pastures, Channel V became youth focussed as Mahesh Murthy, the country head of the channel between 1999 and 2000, made the decision. The channel may not have had as big an impact as it did earlier but it still kicked ass. VJs Andy, Anusha Dandekar, and Purab Kohli helped get the viewers tuned in.

    Attempts were made to rebrand Channel V as a reality show channel, moving away from its music-only programming. The plans, however, did not come to fruition as the channel shifted its focus away from music; it lost much of its popularity and TRPs. Therefore, viewership dropped drastically. In 2016, this mistake was corrected: it went back to playing music videos on loop. Nevertheless, it was too late for Channel V to regain popularity, and Star India decided to shut down operations.

    Now, the time has come to bid adieu to the channel, which will soon be replaced by Star India’s Kannada sports channel. Nowadays, life is hard to imagine without Facebook, Whatsapp or Snapchat. Well, that’s pretty much the case for the kid from the 90s with Channel V running on fumes.

    Goodbye, V. Thanks for the melody and the melodrama.

  • Dekkho & Times release ‘Wakhra Swag’ fame Inder’s exclusive video

    MUMBAI: Wakhra Swag, Navv Inder’s collaboration with Badshah has crossed over 70 million hits across platforms.  Navv Inder is back with a new romantic song with lyrics by Navi Kamboz which will be launched on Dekkho, the online video streaming platform. The music video, produced by Times Music will be exclusively available for the first two days on Dekkho.  Users can download and watch this video exclusively on the Dekkho mobile app, now available on iOS and Android.

    Commenting on the song, Navv Inder says, “This is my debut romantic single for all my fans, especially for those who are in love. The video has been shot beautifully and is a visual treat and I’m thrilled to release it on Dekkho’s unique platform”

    http://www.dekkho.com/music-details/5399369934001/

    Commenting on the launch Dekkho co-founder Vinay Pillai said, “Navv Inder is quickly becoming one of the most popular artists in the country today. He is an absolute sensation with his ever-growing fan base and is stepping into a novel territory with this new track. We are sure that his fans will love this romantic song. Our collaboration with Times Music gives us access to their premium videos, some of them on a first-window basis. We look forward to disrupting premium content even further with this alliance so our users can enjoy the widest range of music for all moods.”

    “Navv Inder is one of the most amazing artistes that Times Music works with and this single penned by Navi Kamboz is an absolute smash. We look forward to working with dekkho on releasing many such collaborations in the future” said Times Music COO Mandar Thakur.

    Headquartered in Mumbai, Dekkho is a new-age video streaming service established in March 2016. Catering specifically to the diverse entertainment needs of Indian viewers, Dekkho allows its users to watch free, high-quality, multichannel premium content with advertisements. Times Music is one of India’s leading music entertainment companies and a division of South Asia’s largest media conglomerate, The Times Of India Group. 

  • Music streaming is gathering momentum in India, feel music experts

    Music streaming is gathering momentum in India, feel music experts

    MUMBAI: At the 6th edition of MixRadio Music Connects, one of the leading panel discussions touched on the topic of streaming music in the country. The objective behind the discussion was to find out what the future of music entailed and study the growth of music streaming in India so far.

     

    The panelists included MixRadio senior product manager Melissa Price, Believe Digital head of sales in Asia Sylvain Delange, RDIO vice president of emerging markets  Snehal Shinde, Guevera founder and director of innovation Claes Loberg and was moderated by Times Music chief operating officer Mandar Thakur.

     

    The session discussed the potential of streaming music, a way of delivering music without the need to download files of different audio formats.

     

    Thakur introduced the session by providing a background on streaming. He said, “Often music streaming is looked upon as a tremendous blessing or a mysterious key to the great digital future. But in the last decade or so, we have been losing consumers. However, there has been the emergence of many music streaming services with many different characteristics and potential.”

     

    Speaking about the different services, Shinde added his opinions on what makes RDIO stand out. He said, “We are a radio first service, so it’s all about giving users a laid-back experience and we achieve that by providing users with rich curated radio stations.  We play songs that people like to listen to.”

     

    Loberg shared his thoughts about the potential of Guvera, an Australian based music streaming service, which has officially launching in India today. “We have very innovative tools and we will make it easy for users to discover, share and manage the music they love,” he said.

     

    Price talked about the evolution of Nokia Music and said, “We had a long history in the music space. We started our transformation in 2010 when we studied the music streaming space. We focused on determining the easiest way for people to listen to music. Last year, we brought to forefront a feature of Nokia music – Play Me that is the ultimate feature in providing the laid back experience. All you have to do is open the app and it’ll keep you entertained providing your own personal radio station with just one click.”

     

    Price also added that customised meta data can help in the profiling of an artist. She said, “Good representation of the artists is important as it allows people to discover new talents and understand the existing ones. By promoting artists well, people would want to find out more about them. It increases curiosity. Things like images, biographies and Twitter handles are very important. It is important to get the meta data right in order to also know the kind of people you are connecting with to the music.”

     

    Delange, who is heading a team of 10 music label managers in India, Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore and China, gave an overview of the role of his company in achieving a key market position in Asia. He said, “It’s really about making the product available. Our main role is to deliver the content, in order to make it available and visible on all the relevant platforms. We help the artistes and labels to understand their audiences and the marketing processes. We package the best products and ensure that everything is pitch-perfect in order to get the best results”.

     

    The discussion then moved to the importance of social media in a world that that is increasingly being run by algorithms and lesser by humans.

     

     Shinde opined, “Facebook likes can be quite deceiving but social media does make content accessible to a wide range of people. The artistes themselves have to be constantly in touch with their fan base. They need to engage through their social networks.”

     

    Melissa elaborated on the importance of knowing latest trends and aliasing with bloggers to promote the content.  “You need to understand the importance of a fan base. When we deliver music, we are delivering it to the fans.  At MixRadio, we have a great team in India that keeps in touch with labels. It is important to know what is trending and what is popular,” she added. In her concluding remarks she said that they were working with significant bloggers who  recommended  the music to their fans  and as a result the number of listeners had increased.