Prince, Stevie Nicks Music Investor Bets on Bollywood
4 min read 25 Apr 2023, 06:33 PM IST - Primary Wave reaches deal with Indian record label as streaming expands global reach of artists
PremiumPrimary Wave Music, home to the music of Prince, Stevie Nicks and James Brown, is expanding in a new direction: Bollywood.
The music publisher is investing in Indian record label and publisher Times Music in a bet that growth will come from emerging international music markets. The investment will help form a new joint venture valued at over $100 million, the companies said.
The deal gives Primary Wave boots on the ground inIndia, a rapidly growing streaming market, and sets up a local partner with the capital to make more catalog investments in Bollywood, South Indian cinema and other Indian music. Executives also point to the Indian diaspora around the world and the opportunity to introduce Indian music to global listeners.
Primary Wave Chief Executive Larry Mestel says emerging markets are going to be a more important revenue stream for artists and the company over the next decade. The company is in negotiations in Latin America and other Asian markets on similar deals, he said.
India is projected to overtake China as the world’s most populous country this year, the United Nations has said.
The Indian music industry has benefited from digital transformation in recent years, with a historically film-driven music market expanding in genre and global reach with the explosion of YouTube and audiostreaming services.
Revenue from recorded music in Indiagrew 48% to $319 million last year from the previous year, according to the trade organization International Federation of the Phonographic Industry. India climbed two ranks to become the 14th-largest music market in the world, and reported the highest growth in the top 20. It ranks 12th globally in streaming, which made up 88% of the country’s total revenue in 2022, according to IFPI.
For decades, the bulk of Indian music production, discovery and consumption has been driven by the film industry. Music is specifically written for movies, and the actors—rather than musicians—become the face of that music, making for a largely song-driven market.
But it has expanded into more of an artist-driven market over the past decade-plus, in large part thanks to YouTube. Consumers, primed for video-based consumption of music, began discovering young, independent artists across pop, rock and hip-hop there, said Times Music Chief Operating Officer Mandar Thakur.
That shift was helped by the penetration of cheap smartphones, which led to growth in India for audiostreaming services, such as JioSaavn, Amazon Music and Apple Music. Spotify, which launched in India early in 2019, in particular has helped market individual artists, not only from India but also from Indian populations around the world, including Punjabi acts out of Canada, said Mr. Thakur.
This month Diljit Dosanjh became the first Punjabi singer to perform at the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival. Earlier this year, M.M. Keeravani and Chandrabose won an Oscar for best original song for “Naatu Naatu" from the film “RRR," the first song from an Indian film to win.
“Listeners have moved from being just a user or consumer of music to fans of artists," said Mr. Thakur. “The time is right for a global superstar from this part of the world."
He said short-form video, including YouTube Shorts and Instagram Reels, also is ushering in a lot of music discovery.
Times Music, a subsidiary of Mumbai-based media conglomerate Times of India Group, has a catalog spanning film, pop, regional and spiritual music.
While global music players are looking to India’s 1.4 billion people as a new frontier for the business, growth there and in other emerging markets brings more limitations compared with more established markets. India’s per-stream payout is significantly lower than in the U.S. and Europe, as the business is primarily ad-driven, and services such as Spotify have had to keep subscription prices low amid consumers’ resistance to pay for music.
Last fall, Brookfield Asset Management Inc. invested in Primary Wave and committed $1.7 billion to fund a permanent capital vehicle focused on acquiring music rights, with an eye toward expanding into international markets such as Mexico, India and Brazil, as well as joining with local music-rights management in those territories.
“We tend to buy into artists that are worldwide," said Primary Wave’s Mr. Mestel. “As streaming continues to penetrate emerging markets and as subscription models grow around the world, you’re going to see more and more of our revenue coming from emerging markets than ever before."