Audio OTT platforms contribute 70% to the Music Industry Revenue

Audio OTT platforms contributed about 70% to the total revenue generated by the domestic recorded music industry in 2018. Revenue from streaming increased to $109 million in 2018 from a little over $30 million in 2014, according to a recent Deloitte-IMI (The Indian Music Industry) report launched in Delhi. These OTT platforms include the likes of Ghana, Wynk, JioSaavn, Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music and YouTube Music. According to the the consumer insights survey carried out by IFPI in 2018, the average internet user in India spends 21.5 hours per week, listening to music compared to the global average of 17.8 hours. That’s an astounding figure.  For the content that is available on these platforms, the OTT players end up paying quite a lot to source the licenses from the Music Labels. This fact is quite a big problem for the players. Let’s not forget that earlier this year, government released the draft rules to amend Copyright Act 2013 that proposed to extend the application of section 31D of the Copyright Act to OTT players, which brings these players under its purview meaning that copyright owners cannot freely negotiate their rate of royalty for the content sourced. This would in turn help to get rid of the licensing agreement with the copyright owners.  Vikram Mehra, Chairman, IMI and MD, Saregama objected to the amendment at the launch of the IMI report and labelled it as a ‘threat’ as Music Streaming Industry is the primary source of revenue for music labels, which is in-fact very true. Not to forget, IFPI reported that last year the recorded music industry cashed in 1,068 crore, while television broadcasters earned 2,850 crore in revenue from recorded music, radio sector earned 2,170 crore from recorded music and the film industry earned 2,090 crore through recorded music.