Music Inc. 2019: Technology Can Do Many Things To Music

Tarun Katial, CEO, Zee5 India shared insights on the synonymity of OTT platforms, paywall and video platforms for music artist at Music.Inc’19

Music.Inc 2019 is an event that covers the music industry and celebrates artists. The event had sessions on the OTT music industry, music rights and brands collaboration with the artist was conducted at Mumbai on 21st June 2019 at JW Marriott, Juhu.

Tarun Katial, CEO, Zee5 India started of his session: Synonymity of OTT Platforms and Music by saying, “Where we are today is the outcome of where digital has got us to. We can consume podcast and content at home at our convenience. That is really what OTT is about digitally transforming content delivery, digitally transforming your own choices that you make and making sure there is a huge amount of technology that plays a role in serving content through data.”

Music has been very different for many years, it was distributed through radio, then TV. But music was always consumed one on one. It is the choice that consumers made and was paid for albums or tracks.

“Digital and Audio On Demand had happened way before streaming started. That too for many reasons music didn’t require as much bandwidth because the music was available to digitize it easier on different devices. It gave rise to personalization”, remarked Katial.

Technology is doing many things to music. 1. It is creating live engagement, 2. It is creating targeting having a serious amount of personalization and 3. It’s creating easy marketing.

According to Katial, the tastes are getting fragmented though. “There are people paying for specialized content and paying for their own tastes and likes in music. We do video content and were surprised to see that many people are ready to pay for content”, says Katial.

Originally most consumers saw digital as a way to promote themselves. But for monetization, it was mainly generated through on-ground activation whether it was parties or events. So, they didn’t think of music as something that they want to put behind any paywall. Now as there are subscription platforms around, we need to understand how to go behind the paywall. Music is finding it harder to go on the paywall because as an industry you have decided to stream content for free on sites like YouTube. It is difficult for a consumer to seek value if you don’t seek value for your content.

- Tarun Katial (CEO, Zee5 India)

Speaking about video platforms Katial said, “Video content on OTT has become cinematic. Because of this, it has enough opportunity to provide original content. These platforms are investing in music too. This is another way to produce original content and co-create with platforms like us. If you want to co-create you can definitely earn through your music. It will be a great promotional platform. But again this is only if you want to see music grow and with the help of a lot of consumers coming on to OTT."

Even documentaries are a key factor that is missing and biopics of musicians is a way to showcase great artist. Musicals can also be produced on premium OTT content and is a way to leverage for both the artist and OTT.