Saregama proves ‘video hasn’t killed radio star’

It is now focussing on alternative revenue streams including creating content for OTT platforms and is lining up as many 18 films, meant for digital or theatrical distribution in the span of a year.

Speaking about the genesis of Carvaan, Vikram Mehra, Managing Director, Saregama India, tells us, “In 2015, we had undertaken a study in 23 cities, including Chennai and Madurai. We found many people over the age of 40 were not keen on using apps to listen to their music. What they needed was a no-frills music player that would recreate the experience of a radio, with the golden oldies, and without having an idea of what the next song would be. The customer response has been very encouraging as we reported hitting the 1 mn sales mark in November last year.”

The player currently retails with 5,000 pre-loaded songs in languages like Tamil, Hindi, Marathi and Bengali, and a Punjabi version was released about two weeks ago, loaded only with Gurbani (devotional) songs. The company is looking at app-enabling the player in a few months, for users who would like to create customised playlists.

Mehra says, “Tamil Nadu is one of our most important markets, thanks to its people’s affinity for music of all kinds. After the success of Carvaan Tamil, we recently unveiled the Mini Tamil Legends player, with 351 songs, including compositions by legends like Ilaiyaraaja, MS Viswanathan and TK Ramamoorthy and AR Rahman. The simultaneously released mini MS Subbulakshmi player was also a fast-moving item in our inventory, which was lapped up by Carnatic fans.”

Saregama is on a diversion spree of sorts at this point and is aggressively looking at acquiring the music rights of new Tamil films, something it has not done in a while. Mehra says, “After Hindi, Tamil is one of our biggest markets for TV shows, and we are involved in producing content for several channels across India. Our film division Yoodlee Films is concentrating on creating intimate, character and story driven films. Netflix has picked up five of our titles, while about 16-18 films are being planned for distribution across various formats over the next one year.”