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Tag: Times Music

  • MX Player bags laurels at Asian Academy Creative Awards 2020

    MX Player bags laurels at Asian Academy Creative Awards 2020

    New Delhi: After its impressive wins in the national level at the 2020 Asian Academy Creative Awards, MX Player has now gone on to win 2 record-setting honors at the Grand Finals of the awards, being the only homegrown Indian OTT platform to win at an Asia level. Competing with some of the biggest shows pan Asia, the brand stood out in two categories – the Best Original Programme by a Streamer/OTT was bagged by its Ramya Krishnan starrer Queen and the Best Music/Dance Programme was won by its larger-than-life music reality chat show – Times of Music.

    MX Player chief content officer Gautam Talwar said, “Both these web series have been extremely special projects for us, and they’ve been an industry first – be it Queen that was mounted at a never seen before scale for a regional series or Times of Music that was genuinely a first of its kind concept. One of the top priorities for us was to offer differentiated content that would resonate with audiences and we're very pleased to receive such an honour for our efforts, not only on an India level but Pan-Asia as well.”

    “Elated that Queen has won the best original programme by a streamer/OTT at Singapore’s Asian Academy Creative Awards, and more so because we won on the very same day that we started filming for season 1 of the series! It’s great to be recognised alongside some of the biggest shows across all Asian countries. A big shout-out to the entire team and I am looking forward to filming season 2 soon”, added Ramya Krishnan as she speaks about the win for Queen.

    Times Music host Vishal Dadlani said, “The concept of Times of Music is fresh, unique, and something the audiences haven’t seen before. MX Player has done a great job of constructing the show and detailing out each aspect – be it artiste pairing, the fantastic stage or finding hidden stories that have been lost over time, which made for such great conversations. This has been one of the biggest musical stages in the digital space and this award is a win well deserved for the entire team.”

    The Asian Academy Creative Awards are Asia-Pac’s most prestigious awards for creative excellence, honoring the excellence in craft and technical discipline across multiple platforms including television, digital, mobile, streaming and any other emerging technologies. 

  • Play By The Rules With PPL India

    Play By The Rules With PPL India

    Phonographic Performance Limited (PPL) is India’s largest organization licensing and monetising ‘Public Performance rights’ and ‘Radio Broadcasting rights’ for over 3 million national and international songs across 340+ top-notch music labels like Aditya Music, Anand Audio, Lahiri Music, Muzik 247, Saregama, Sony Music, Speed Records, SVF Music, Times Music, T-Series, Universal Music, Venus to name a few.

    Each year the music industry produces hundreds of songs, many of which resonate with the audience and become a part of our cultural ethos. In the last few years, there has been an intense drive to increase compliance from users of copyrighted sound recordings for public performance purposes. Enforcement authorities as well as judiciary have played a major role alongside simplification and rationalization of tariffs by PPL. 

    The implementation of digital initiatives such as PLUS have speeded up the process of obtaining a license and the response from businesses and event management companies has been heart-warming. India is now at par with some of the most developed markets in terms of copyright compliance and is seeing this revenue go back into the development of artists and repertoire.  In its endeavour to further increase compliance, PPL is consistently taking efforts to identify defaulters and ensuring that they are dealt with, under the relevant provisions of law.

    Commenting on the same, Rajat Kakar, MD & CEO, PPL India said, “I am delighted that there has been a huge surge in establishments taking on performance licenses for both background music and events. I am thankful to the users of sound recordings for coming forward to obtain licenses in large numbers. Also, I would like to take this opportunity to thank the enforcement teams across the country for ensuring that the rightful earnings of owners of sound recording are being protected. 

    The technology initiatives and professional work processes, at PPL, are ensuring that right owners are being fairly compensated. India is being seen as a shining example of copyright compliance and ethical practices by international agencies that seek to protect intellectual property rights. I urge the few misguided non-compliant users to come forward to obtain a license for usage of sound recordings for public performance and play music by the rules.”

    Under the Copyright Act 1957, each and every establishment or individual must obtain consent from the copyright owners of the music before they intend to play it publicly. PPL by virtue of controlling over 3 million songs, makes this process a simplified one by offering a single window license for usage of all its members’ works. 

    PPL’s dominant share of International, Hindi and Regional music is available to users for Public Performance and Radio Broadcast. 

    PPL encourages all users to procure the requisite License to avoid legal proceedings against them. As any offence under Section 51 & 63 of the Copyright Act of 1957, is an infringement of PPL’s copyright and punishable by law.

  • Sony Music’s Shridhar Subramaniam succeeds Ganesh Jain as PPL chairman

    Sony Music’s Shridhar Subramaniam succeeds Ganesh Jain as PPL chairman

    MUMBAI: Sony Music Entertainment president India & Middle East Shridhar Subramaniam has been unanimously elected as the chairman of Phonographic Performance Limited (PPL) the by board of directors representing Saregama, Universal, Tips, Venus and Aditya Music.

     

    Venus Worldwide Entertainment Private Limited chairman Ganesh Jain, who presided over PPL during one of the four most challenging years of the organisation.

     

    Jain said, “It gives me great pleasure to pass on the baton to a stalwart in the music industry and I believe Shridhar with his unique ability and experience will steer the industry successfully into the next phase of expansion.”

     

    “These are exciting times. The industry has great opportunities as well as challenges ahead and with the help of the Board and Management, I hope to bring a sense of optimism and inclusiveness to PPL and the industry and I am confident that we will collectively build the foundations for a strong future,” added Subramaniam. 

     

    Universal Music Group South Asia managing director Devraj Sanyal, Tips Industries managing director Kumar Taurani, Saregama India managing director Vikram Mehra and Aditya Music chairman Umesh Gupta expressed their support to Subramaniam.

     

    President of Honour V.J. Lazarus, who spent the last 10 years at PPL will be concluding his long innings with the association in March 2016. Lazarus has a experience of 45 years in the industry, the first 35 as Universal Music Group India managing director and later chairman.

     

    Lazarus said, “I will dedicate these final six months of my tenure to facilitate and support chairman Shridhar Subramaniam, the PPL Board and the Management through this transition.”

     

    PPL was incorporated in 1941 and is the apex-licensing arm of the Indian music industry and administers Public Performance and Broadcasting rights on behalf of over 200 members, which include the leading music companies like Saregama, Sony, Universal, Tips, Venues, Aditya Music, Times Music, Eros and Music Today amongst others.

  • 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.

  • Sunil Lulla promoted to President, Corporate Development of BCCL Group

    Sunil Lulla promoted to President, Corporate Development of BCCL Group

    MUMBAI: Nine years ago, Sunil Lulla was given the challenge of steering the Times Television Network’s (TTN) fortunes in a competitive Indian TV landscape. Today, the late entrant in the industry has blossomed as a broadcast major. And it seems like the former TTN MD and CEO’s  efforts have not gone unnoticed by the board of Bennett Coleman & Co Ltd (BCCL). Lulla is being challenged once again to work his magic on and grow some relatively nascent activities within the group.

     

    Lulla has been designated as President of Corporate Development in the BCCL group and has been been given the task of replicating his earlier success with TTN in smaller BCCL businesses like music, sports, new IP, international events and other initiatives. The Times Music division will now be reporting to Lulla who will be working closely with Times Internet CEO  Satyan Gajwani and BCCL group  MD Vineet Jain.

     

    Former Disney UTV Media Networks MD MK Anand will be taking over as the new MD and CEO of TTN, stepping into Lulla’s shoes. The date when both of them will be taking on their new roles is not yet clear but it will be sometime in February.

     

    Lulla has nearly three decades of experience in the industry. He has worked with leading organizations such as MTV, Sony Entertainment Television and successfully built TTN into an enterprise.  Now he will have to create a new legacy for TTN’s parent-BCCL.

     

    While MK Anand was unavailable for comment, Sunil Lulla confirmed the news about his new role. Apparently an official announcement was made internally by the BCCL management very recently.