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Virgin not immune to charms of Hindi film music
Krishna Gopalan
Mumbai : Virgin Records (India), a member of the EMI Group, plans to enter the Hindi film music category. This was disclosed by Mohan Mahapatra, Managing Director, Virgin Records India to eFE. Mr Mahapatra said it was `only logical' for his company to enter the film music business. "The largest percentage of the music business in India comes from film music" he explained. He added that his company would make its debut in Hindi film music sometime next year. Virgin Records, formerly owned by Richard Branson, is today a label owned by the EMI Group. Parts of EMI's catalogue is currently being launched by Virgin in India. A recent success from that catalogue has been The Beatles No 1 album which was launched in November last year. Indipop has also been an area of interest to the company with the launch of Shubha Mudgal's Ab Ke Saawan and Mann ke Manjeere. Film music constitutes over two-thirds of the Rs 1,200 crore Indian music industry. According to industry estimates, approximately 40 per cent of thiscomes from new Hindi films. In that context, success in this segment is the only way to increase market share for companies like Virgin Records which control a very small part of the market. What makes the business risk-intensive and uncertain is that just a few movies do well commercially and the music companies in most cases do not recover their investments. Mr Mahapatra predicts stability in the cost of acquiring music rights which will then make the business a lot more viable. "We will wait till the cost of acquiring the music rights for movies becomes a lot more viable" he added. At this stage, the music for big budget Hindi films are sold at astronomical prices. At these prices, producers recover a substantial portion of the film's budget. Saregama picked up the rights to Yash Chopra's Mohabbatein for a sum of Rs 7.5 crore. It is reported that Tips has bought the music rights for Subhash Ghai's forthcoming movie Yaadein for around Rs 8.5 crore. Copyright © 2001 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
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