In an exclusive interaction with MediaBrief, Sunil Khanna, Founder of Songdew, speaks about how the music industry in India is going through a structural change and how Songdew is helping artists and independent labels grow. He also speaks about Surge – the joint initiative of Songdew & HT Media and how through Surge artists would get the support of strong media vehicles to amplify their music and hone their craft.
Sunil is an IIT Kharagpur and IIM Bangalore alumni. After a successful corporate career, he started his entrepreneurial journey with Topper Learning. In 2014, he founded Songdew with an aim to take independent music in India to newer heights. Over the last few years, under his leadership, Songdew has emerged to be the largest network of independent artists in India with over 50,000 artists on board.
Give us an overview of Songdew and its core TG. What gets its listeners grooving?
Songdew is a platform to empower artists to distribute, promote and monetize the music. Thus, the core target group of the platforms is everyone who aspires to be a musician or has already opted for music as a profession.
The platform has 55K + artists /musicians using its services, they include some of the best-known musicians to aspiring musicians.
Songdew TV is aimed at showcasing the best of indie music to its viewers. Songdew TV is distributed through leading DTH, Cable, and OTT platforms and reaches more than 200 M HHs.
How does Songdew as a platform help artists, independent labels?
All the services offered by Songdew.com are meant to enable distribution, promotion, and monetization of music. Thus, artists could use the Songdew platform to distribute their music to more than 100+ streaming platforms like Spotify, I Tunes, Amazon Prime, etc.
In addition to this, artists could access various digital tools to amplify their music and also get an opportunity to broadcast their music on various FM Radio stations.
To amplify the music, Songdew TV also plays an important role as not only do we broadcast select music videos but also produce programs like Track Tales to bring out interesting stories behind the making of the music.
Songdew has unveiled SURGE, its Artist Management Programme. How will the platform help artists and amplify their talent?
Surge is a joint initiative of Songdew and HT Media and thus, an artist would get support through strong media vehicles of HT Media including FM Fever and Radio One to amplify their music.
Thus, it is very different from most initiatives in this area wherein either the very popular artists are being managed or one is working only as a booking agent. Surge aims at creating Music Stars of tomorrow.
There have been on and off a few initiatives to support artists in one particular area in a limited manner. However, there has been no programme where artists get all the support in a holistic manner and, thus, helps artists to realise their potential.
We have launched the programme with three artists: Pune-based band Fiddlecraft, Singer & Songwriter Harpreet from Mumbai, and The Tapi Project from Surat. Over a period of time, we would include more artists in the programme. However, we take it as a huge responsibility of managing the career of artists.
Besides this, both artists and we have to have enough confidence in each other to have long-term association. Hence, we will keep looking for more artists and initiate discussions to add to the line-up of SURGE artists over a period of time.
Music today is no longer connected to movies with standalone artists, albums gaining massive popularity. How will this change in the industry translate into opportunities for artists?
The music industry in India is going through structural change. Traditionally music in India was mainly about music from films. However, that scenario is changing rapidly. There are two main factors that are driving this change.
One, the filmmaking in India is now no more around music. Film Makers are evolving and are becoming experimental. Thus, music is no more the integral part of filmmaking as it used to be.
Two, youth in India are exploring different genres of music – From folk to electronica, from Blues to Pop, From Metal to Jazz. The advent of non-linear media is driving this trend. Also, the sheer quality of content being created by the musicians outside Bollywood is outstanding. Hence, we are seeing huge traction for music outside Bollywood.
Thus, we can see that the Future of Music in India is going to be music that is from outside the films. However, the acceleration of this trend depends on the exposure to music and that needs a holistic programme and investment to amplify the music both on traditional as well as digital media.
When music is used as a tool to promote a film, producers are able to invest the money in amplification as the returns come from the film and not from music. However, that becomes a completely unviable proposition for stand-alone music.
Thus, Surge is conceptualized to fill in the gap and put outstanding talent on the fast track. The whole objective of Surge is to tap the outstanding talent who we believe have the potential to be tomorrows music stars, and then support them in a holistic manner in terms of managing social media, content planning amplification on TV, Radio, and digital media and also help them in generating revenue streams including getting them brand association.
Let’s talk about independent artists and their growth in our country. How can we keep the momentum going?
One had witnessed the first wave of music outside films in the early 90s. Various artists like Daler Mehndi, Shilpa Rao, Alisha Chinoy became household names during that phase. That showed that when people listen to music they appreciate good music irrespective of the fact whether it is from films or not.
After that, there has been a lull in the exposure of music from outside films and that was because of changing dynamics of the music business when the music stopped selling and labels and artists did not find it viable to invest in the promotion of music. However, the scenario is changed now.
Music outside is growing at a phenomenal pace. Today, the key attraction of live events in every college festival is the live acts by indie artists. Most music festivals in the country are all about the music from outside films. Also, a heartening trend is that people are paying money to buy tickets for music events. Look at any of the ticketing platforms and you will find 90% off ticketed events are all about music acts from outside films.
Brands can come forward to tap this trend and be associated with the right music aligning with their brand positioning. This would not only accelerate the process but also add to brand equity.
What is the future of indie music and indie artists in India? And how will the Indian music landscape change in the future?
Many people have the perception that indie music is perhaps niche music as the number of listeners for such music has been small compared to the popularity of music from the films. This is far from the truth as we see it. People love to listen to good music.
However, they need to be exposed to such music, on their own they do not have the drive to search for such music, Hence as more and more music is going to be exposed to music listeners, we will see SURGE of new music sensations in the country.
Also, we believe live music experiences would grow exponentially as the COVID-related situation normalizes. Amongst the live experiences, music globally has been on the top and we are set to see the same trend in India as well.