There are lots of exciting green shoots for an independent music scene in India, but music from films continues to be the dominant factor in what people are listening to there.
That was one of the talking points at the recent Music Inc conference, as reported on by journalist Amit Gurbaxani for Firstpost. He notes that Spotify India’s MD Amarjit Singh Batra said that film-music still generates 80% of the music industry’s revenue in India, with the majority of this coming from Bollywood soundtracks (because Bollywood isn’t all ‘film music’ in India: for example Tamil and Telegu movies are also generating lots of listening).
However, there are predictions that film-music’s share will fall in the coming years, aided by streaming’s status as a platform for independent artists too. “I suspect in the next five to seven years, our music industry is going to look similar to the western music industry,” in that it will be “an artist-driven economy,” said Times Music COO Mandar Thakur.
The full report explores some other talking points from Music Inc, including predictions that regional music from beyond the booming Punjabi scene will continue to grow in importance – not least because “middle India” is expected to supply a lot of the next tranche of new music-streaming listeners.
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