Although the music industry grew by just 1% in 2007 and had a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of a meagre 3% between 2004-2007, it hasn?t dampened the spirits of new coprorates entering this business. The new kid on the block is media conglomerate Pyramid Saimira, which has launched ?Pyramid Saimira Music?.
S Saminathan, MD, Pyramid Saimira said, ?Through this music-publishing brand, we will be buying and publishing film as well as non film music. We?ve started in Tamil and will expand to all other Indian languages shortly.? The company has recently announced to produce 52 films this year and the music of these movies will be released through Pyramid Saimira music. Saminathan said, ?We have already launched around nine labels. Apart from this, we also plan to buy and distribute more than 100 plus films of other production houses and we plan to buy music in some of them as well.?
?Nowadays, retail sale of music is miniscule and only music on the Internet and on mobile phones generate more revenues. Generally, 2-5 % of the cost of films is recoverable through music, depending upon the acceptance by public.?
Talking about piracy, Saminathan feels that there is nothing one can do. ?You have to accept that retail sale will go down; even if you reduce cost. One cannot compete with pirates who have no copyright cost or taxation issues. Now, cell phone tunes along with radio FM are major sales points and unfortunately, telcos are not too transparent about real downloads,? concluded Saminathan.