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Guess who came third?

Only two Hindi films won the trade label of 'hit' last year, and their music albums naturally sold well. But the third position is a wild card entry

The first position went to the movie that launched a muscular star. Kaho Naa Pyar Hai not only gave Hrithik a spanking new career, but also sold eight million copies to become the top seller of 2000. Next came Mohabbatein, starring Amitabh Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan and selling six million copies. Sales obviously powered by star charisma. But the album that came third looks like a wild card entry. Adnan Sami Khan's Kabhi To Nazar Milao, an album of private songs, sold two million copies, which is much better showing than many film albums.

These figures were released recently by the International Federation of Phonographic Industries (IFPI). The music monitoring agency also put the growth of the Indian music market last year at 13.8 per cent, a figure the Indian music trade contests. An Indian Music Industry (IMI) official's contention is that the Indian music business grew only by 5 per cent in 2000. On the global scale, music sales fell by 1 per cent during the same period.

So how did the IFPI arrive at these "wrong" numbers? The answer is that it could have computed them on the basis of unaudited IMI reports, and sales sheets provided by the Indian offices of the global music majors.

"Unlike other markets, which are dominated by global companies, over 80 per cent of the Rs 1,200-crore organised sector in India is controlled by local players like T-Series, Saregama, Venus and Tips. Therefore, the numbers provided by firms like Sony, EMI-Virgin and Universal are not representative," says Businessworld magazine in its latest issue.

The Indian Music Industry came into existence in 1994, but its precursor, the Indian Phonographic Industry (IPI), has been around since 1936. In fact, the IPI described itself as a "non-profit association of producers of sound recordings" and took pride in being one of the world's oldest music companies' associations. The IPI's job was to "defend, preserve and develop the rights of phonogram producers and to promote and encourage advancement of creativity and culture through sound recordings".

In 1994, the IPI dropped phonography from its name and got a new identity by calling itself IMI. But that didn't affect its affiliation to the International Federation of Phonographic Industry (IFPI). IMI brings together major record companies in their fight against piracy. Its members include The Gramophone Company of India (HMV), Universal Music (India), Tips, Venus, Magnasound, BMG Crescendo, Sony, Virgin Records, Milestone, Times Music and several other labels representing over 75 per cent of legitimate recordings.

IMI's head office is in Calcutta, and administrative office in Mumbai. It runs anti-piracy offices in cities like Mumbai, Chennai and Bangalore.

In 1995, the IFPI ranked India's pirate music market the third largest in the world, next only to China and Mexico.

According to industry insiders quoted by Outlook magazine in October 2000, 40 percent of all recorded music in India is still pirated. "This means that out of the nearly 600 million cassettes sold annually, nearly 240 million are illegally manufactured and sold by pirates. In other words, the music industry loses more than 111 million dollars a year," the magazine said.


TMM Desk



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