MUMBAI: As India’s digital growth story commences, a lot of players have recently come up in the space and taken digital music consumption to another level altogether. With 2012, being a major year for most digital players, the platform is being explored in various ways to enable music innovations. Aiming big is also Ping Digital Broadcast’s India Music Network (IMN), which recently launched on the platform.
Founded by media veterans Govindraj Ethiraj who currently heads content and Prashanto Das who focuses on operations, the YouTube channel is stated to be the country’s first internet HD broadcasting network. It aims to build and promote a new generation of indie musicians and artistes to showcase their talent and earn from the revenue their music can generate. The channel officially launched three weeks back and is still in the seeding stage.
Their repertoire spans across broad range of music from semi-classical thumris to ballads in the independent music genre. It does not stick to a particular language, but the channel aims at exploring the regional music space and getting international content in the future to keep its audience base growing. It scouts for talent and creates a high quality viewing and listening experience for music fans by shooting a music video for the artistes and presenting it on their platform. The channel is backed by Google and has YouTube as its partner for efficient viewing.
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Speaking with Radioandmusic.com, IMN founder Prashanto Das said, “ We are aiming to dole out the next big broadcast network but on the digital platform. The whole idea was to bring India like we see and understand which is a land of diversity and untapped talent. This is a potential which global audiences are today also recognizing. In the last few years, bollywood has experimented a lot with indie music and new artistes so we feel that there is a changing trend when it comes to music.”
With audio visual having a large potential than just a plain audio track, the channel signs on untapped talent with good content to promote them in various ways on the platform.
“We bring a visual language to everything that was audio. Some years back, a lot of good music and artistes were out there but without any music videos. Today if a song is not backed by a video, the chances of somebody seeing it is very low,” he added.
It currently boasts of a repertoire of artistes including Samidha Joglekar who was featured on MTV Coke Studio. Other young talents are Madhurima, Vipin Mishra from OK Listen and the band Ether who have performed in Bangladesh and more. Apart from roping in artistes from partnerships, they also have their own selection process where around six artistes are selected from a poll of 100.
Known for creating original content, the channel recently created and aired a special music video for Republic Day on the tune of the popular patriotic number ‘Vande Mataram’. Composed by Dhurv Dhalla of Khosla Ka Ghosla fame, it features vocals by Dhalla and Kavita Seth. The song has an emotional undertone and reflects patriotism with its music and can be accessed by users on the channel.
Apart from that, they have partnered with OK Listen encouraging the new generation of musicians and artistes from the site on its dedicated YouTube platform. The association will build artiste portfolios and enable them to earn revenue on their talent. Das stated, “We are working with those artistes closely and making videos also for them. And these are all songs that have not been heard before. We are giving a platform to these artistes who have good music. The idea is to build a community around this so we are aiming to seed in enough content first. We are currently building our content library.”
Though it is a free channel at the moment, the funds are sourced with the help of Google which markets and promotes the content through various activities. The channel also ropes in sponsors to showcase premiers and first looks of music videos which also allow the artiste to benefit and earn a certain sum of revenue. Most of the videos featured on the platform commence with the artiste introducing themselves, followed by their track.
“It is still too early to start with a subscription based model so monetization is currently through Google promoted activities but we also have sponsors coming to us and wanting to associate. We have partners like OK Listen for content and then we will have others who will complete the reward and satisfaction aspect of the business which will allow the artiste to benefit a lot,” he pointed out.
While the channel will be focusing on premiering a wide range of music videos in the near future, it also has a segment of shows dedicated to artistes and music. One property profiles the artistes and their music, ‘First Cut’ features the new artistes and ‘OK Listen Presence’ features artistes sourced from the site.
The network aims to create more such properties in the future and also expand to on-ground events like concerts and more to create a 360 degree exposure for artistes, with an objective to be roped in by leading music labels.
Das expressed, “Attaining views is a short term goal which a marketing push can easily achieve. But what we are looking at is organically building it to the largest music platform for original content. We will build new properties for talent to come in and showcase their content. And we are very positive about the fact that these artistes will get picked up by some music labels helping us to grow as well.”
Also aiming to focus on collaborations and build international partnerships, the network will further set up a high definition studio within two months. The studio will help facilitate musicians from across the globe gathering together for a jam session which will be live streamed on the digital channel.
With the property all set to venture into on-ground initiatives, it may be in the competitive space with major music channels also exploring the same avenues. But Das claimed that they are still quite apart from television music channels in various aspects.
“What sets us apart from everybody else is that we are making and creating original content. We create videos which television will not invest money into and it’s very prohibitive for them to do it. We work on a low cost model but a high quality model. All our videos are in HD which gives us a competitive edge,” he said.
