“Music TV penetration in India is approx 650 million+ and growing”

The Music genre has shown resilience amid the pandemic times after witnessing a slide in the peak lockdown period in 2020. As per BARC data for Week 15 (April 10-16) of 2021, Mastiii channel topped the Music genre with 285.11 weekly AMA (000), followed by B4U Music, MTV Beats, 9XM and 9X Jalwa.

As per TAM AdEx data, the Music genre witnessed 2.8x rise in average ad volumes per day in Q4 of 2020 (October-December), as compared to Q2 of 2020 (April-June).

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BARC India, in its analysis of TV ad volumes for the period of January-February 2021 vis-à-vis the last 5 years, states that among the top genres, Movies and Music + Youth registered higher growth than the average growth in Overall Ad Volumes (25% and 24%, respectively), followed by GEC and News with 21% and 18% growth, respectively, during January-February 2021 over the same period in 2020.

Speaking about the growth of the Music genre during the pandemic times, Vikas Boni, Head MTV Beats, Business Planning & Content Partnerships, Youth, Music and English Entertainment, Viacom18, said, “As the unlock period began, MTV Beats continued to strengthen its programming with newer music blocks, which saw 20%+ higher viewership. MTV Beats was consistently ahead of its closest competitor (9XM) by an average 15% margin. MTV Beats grossed the highest time-spent of the year of 35 minutes and surpassed FTA competition Mastiii, propelling the channel to an excellent growth trajectory.”

Boni further said, “MTV Beats grossed a massive 134 nillion total viewing minutes and 380 million cumulative viewers across India as we speak. (TG: All India 2+; Apr’20 to Feb’21) Business was back on track by the end of Q1 and settled to normalcy by Q3. There has been an overall increase in demand for the music genre. In fact, we are currently witnessing demand exceed supply on MTV Beats.”

While the world and businesses transitioned to Digital, Online streaming platforms have seen a growth surge as well. Speaking about the impact of online music streaming on music channels, Pawan Jailkhani, Chief Revenue Officer and Executive Board Member, 9X Media, said, “Music TV penetration in India is approximately 650 million+ and growing, online music streaming is not event half of it. Music as a space, whether you watch it on Radio or Online Streaming, they only compliment TV Channels. Music Channels will be far more ahead in terms of viewership for a simple reason, that, today, we have the highest TV Penetration in the country, and Music is almost 95% of that penetration; Secondly, people tend to understand songs more than the lyrics, they tend to understand video.”

Today’s youth live in an era of abundance. They have access to the best of the programming content and hence, they expect supreme quality from the entertainment providers. The industry has evolved in an interesting way over the period of time and these are the times of transformations.

Speaking on GenZ’s engagement with music, A senior industry leader, said, “We continue our commitment to cater to the younger generation. Keeping this in mind, we always focus on an overall communications plan that targets every platform with special focus and attention spent on connecting with the youth through their language. Riding high on insights that digital media has a wider reach among the youth, in 2021 we will continue to aggressively use this medium to connect with our consumer.”

With 1.3 billion music lovers and a strong economic growth, the value of music in India is expected to double by next year. India has a history of cultural innovation driven by necessity. MTV’s Vikas Boni said, “Piracy is still an issue even in the streaming age. While the Government is seen as being a supporter, there is a strong need to crack down on piracy and address this challenge. Even a slight shift will have a huge effect in the market. Improvements in the anti-piracy effort is the need of the hour and also the push needed for music culture to flourish and spread further across India.”