Music is one of the biggest parts of Indian culture and the history of music dates back to the Vedic ages. There are so many forms of music in India but Bollywood music has dominated the scene for more than 100 years. With massive digitization and the rise of streaming services, regional music has also gained traction in the mainstream music industry. Indian music has now reached a worldwide audience with the help of digitization.
IMI
The Indian Music Industry or the IMI founded on February 28, 1936, is an organization representing the recording industry distributors in India. It was named Indian Phonographic Industry or IPI when it was founded. It is the second oldest music industry organization in the world. It protects the copyrights of the music producers and helps in the growth of the music scene. It represents India at the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry or IFPI. It is registered with the West Bengal Societies Registration Act as well. Top national and international record companies in India like T-Series, Saregamapa India Ltd., Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music, Virgin Records, Zee Music, and many more are parts of this organization. More than 75% of all legal music sales in India are represented by the IMI.
The organization’s administrative office is in Mumbai and its registered office is in Kolkata. There are other offices under IMI in various cities like Bangalore, New Delhi, Hyderabad, Chennai, and many other cities. The organization is tirelessly working to prevent piracy of music and protect the rights of the music producers. It also has been a part of the launching of the IMMIES music awards with MTV.
History
The Indian music industry had been dominated by cassette tapes in the 1980s and 1990s. The industry broke records with cassette sales of nearly 180 million units in 1990. This data includes both legal and pirated sales. India became the second biggest cassette market after the United States with that record-breaking sale. The Indian music industry was earning nearly $291 million or ₹12 billion by 1998.
At the beginning of the 2000s, the industry sold nearly 49 million cassettes every month. At the end of the 2000s, the music industry shifted to online streaming reducing the sale of cassettes, CDs, and even digital downloads.
Structure of the current Indian music industry
With the current population of young people at 1.3 billion, the music industry of India is growing rapidly. Music professionals are now considering the Indian music industry as the biggest frontier in the world. The revenues of the Indian Music Industry have experienced rapid growth over the few years. The latest rise is driven by the growing online population of the country. India’s film industries, especially the Bollywood film industry still contribute greatly to the Indian music industry. Bollywood films alone produce nearly 80% of the music revenue of the country. The revenue of the Indian music industry is generated by three core businesses: recording, publishing, and live.
- Recording music industry
As per the reports of the IFPI, in 2018 the recording music industry generated more than $153 million, which is more than 17% of 2017. In the same year, the revenue of streaming music rose by over 22% as streaming made up 69% of all the recording music revenues. It is also known that 80% of music consumption is contributed by film music in India and outside.
- Publishing industry
The publishing music industry is still not very mature. The Music Copyright Act of India issued copyrights of the songs to the film producer up till 2012 and not to the actual songwriters. Amendments to the law have been made since then but the publishing industry still needs to make a lot of improvements as most artists do not earn from the royalties. The revenue made up by the royalties received by the songwriters and composers makes less than 1% of the total revenue of the music industry or only $4 million.
- Live industry
The live music industry in India is not easy, to sum up, due to the disjointed nature of 5the live music scene in India. From the reports of the Indian Music Convention and PwC, it is speculated that around $280 million in revenue is generated by the live music industry in India. The ticket sales for the live music made up 30% of all live revenues as per PwC estimation. The rest of the revenue is divided into brand sponsorships, merchandise sales, private events, and more.
All three industries make up a total of $443 million for the Indian Music Industry. The country has gained the 15th position in the 2018 IFPI rankings. The music industry of India aims to take a position in the top 20 by 2022. The music industry has to maintain its growth and accelerate accordingly in the coming years to meet the goal.
Record labels
The record labels have been a part of the music industry for a long time and the biggest record label right now in India is T-Series. It has a 35% share of the Indian music market. Next to the race is Sony Music India with a 25% share in the market followed by Zee music, which is in a partnership with Sony. The other top music labels in India are Saregamapa India Ltd, Universal Music, Virgin Records, Times Music, Aditya Music, Tips Industries Limited, and many more.
International Top 20 Singles
The International Top 20 Singles chart was launched by the IMI on June 21st in 2021. The best-performing international songs in India as per the data from Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music are included in the weekly published chart. Some of the latest top singles in the chart are ‘As It Was’ (May 2, 2022) by Harry Styles, ‘Yet To Come’ (June 20, 2022) by BTS, ‘Left and Right (July 4, 2022) by Charlie Puth, and more.
There are two types of certification for both albums and singles: Gold and Platinum. While the album units are measured by Album Equivalent and tracks are measured by Track Equivalent.
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