VYOMA SHAH
The Indian Music Consumer
While India ranks 19th, when it comes to the largest music markets of the world, the Indian music industry is gradually approaching its prime and has the potential to be one of top ten music markets in the world. Data driven companies like Gracenote are working hard to help better understand the Indian music consumers’ mindset and music consumption patterns. Proper utilization and analysis of this data can really help shape the industry and accelerate its growth.
Owing to the mobile phone proliferation, streaming has become increasingly prominent as a source of music consumption, so much so that it is the industry’ s leading cash cow. The Nielson India Music 360 report states that on an average, each online consumer spends 20 hours per week, listening to music. A majority of the streaming happens through music videos, 21.6 % to be precise, followed by streaming through various different audio services. This explains why YouTube is the most popular streaming platform, followed by Jio Music and Google Play.
While the rate of streaming is exhibiting an upward curve, revenues are not rising proportionately. This is because piracy is still extremely rampant in our country, consumers are still hesitant to pay for this vast array of content. This explains why a streaming colossus like Apple Music, which is entirely a paid subscription service, is the least popular streaming platform in our country. What it might take to fix this imbalance between music consumption through streaming and revenue inflow, is a more vigilant approach towards detecting and closing piracy sites, which I know is harder said than done.
Cherie Hu, an award winning music writer said in one of her articles that outfitting streaming services with cleaner data might contribute towards bridging the gap as well, which is what Gracenote is aiming to do with its product – Gracenote Global Music Data.“ We sell a normalized set of artist albums and recordings, i. e., for any individual entity, there is just one representation. Also, for the past fifteen years, we’ ve been developing descriptive metadata – things like genre, mood, style, language etc., so that it makes it easier for our customers to create better user experiences,” said Tom Rettig Vice President of Product, Music, Gracenote.
Despite digitization and exposure to a multitude of genres, the average Indian music consumer still prefers Bollywood over all other genres, followed by other Indian film music, Indian pop, Indian regional folk and then western pop music. However, with video streaming services becoming almost synonymous with the age old television, several possibilities open up for more artists hailing from the non-Bollywood world. Artist and composer Karan Malhotra has recently been composing a lot of music for various web series such as Girl in the City and the Trip. Indian shows like Sacred Games on Netflix are getting recognition for their music. If artists’ original compositions and recorded music start finding a significant place in these shows, it would open a whole new world of opportunities. It would give them the level playing field they deserve and pave way to exploit the much underutilized power of sync rights in our country.
As far as live music is concerned, the report claimed that 47 % prefer to watch live acts at intimate venues like bars and coffee shops. While the repercussions of the live music ban in a city like Bangalore, where music is such an integral part of the culture are daunting, there’ s still hope.
Our current and future economy seems extremely promising. According to the report, 86 % of online consumers use a smartphone to consume music weekly and this number is only likely to grow. India will have the world’ s largest population by 2030, middle and high income classes will experience an increase in earnings and India will continue to be a young economy. Can’ t wait to see what the future will unravel for the Indian music industry.
The Score Magazine highonscore. com
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