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Our guest for the interview column this month is Mr.Umesh Gupta, Managing Director of ADITYA MUSIC Pvt.Ltd. While sipping on a cup of coffee a close freind of mine from the biggest music company in India said about Mr.Umesh Gupta "He is amazing at sales. Nimble and highly effective "

It gets better still when Mr.Savio, Secretary General of The IMI calls him "The KING OF SOUTH INDIA". I was more than curious to meet this man whose vision and ability is the reason that Aditya Music (India) Pvt. Ltd occupies a leading position in the entire South Indian Music Industry.  His brave decision,  in the Nineties to cut short the prices of Cassettes from around Rs.50/- to Rs.18/-  brought  Aditya Music(India) Pvt Ltd, close to the people,   broke the backbone of piracy, compelled other music companies to follow  Aditya Music(India)Pvt. Ltd  and endeared him to the Tollywood film industry.

Aditya Music(India) Pvt. Ltd., is a music company located at Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, India.  in the service of music lovers for more than two decades. All through the years,  it has been their policy to  consistently give excellent quality product to their customers at the most economical pricing. This policy has contributed to the growth of the company from being  a small retail business to one of the leading  Music Companies in South India having sales in excess of Rs.15 crores a figure which envied upon by even the BIG BOYS of the music market.

Aditya Music is associated with music organizations like the IFPI, IMI, PPL, IPRS. In close collaboration with the above organizations, they are an active campaigner of Anti-piracy and are involved in the promotion  and enforcement of  copyright law.

ADITYA MUSIC has acquired Music Labels such as Echo(Telugu), Leo and  Maruthi Music.  Apart from being a Market leader  in  Telugu Film Industry,  they have recently stepped into Tamil, Malayalam,   Carnatic Classical Music  and enriched their catalogue with around 900 most popular and memorable Titles,  boosting their catalogue strength to around 2000 Titles.  Apart from these 2000 Titles, they have around 150 super hit Video Titles.  Their catalogue  is a true musical embodiment of the entire south India.

They have  set up their own Cassettee manufacturing plant by importing state of the Art TAPEMATICS  machinery from Italy. It is manned by the most experienced staff to ensure high quality production. Apart from the above manufacturing facility, they have three Music Retail Showrooms In the name of  SANGEET SAGAR belonging to their sister concern at Hyderabad and Secunderabad.

Mr.Umesh Gupta , MD, Aditya Music in an exclusive chat with

The IMI Editor Sudhir Shreedharan.

A very Good Morning to you Umesh Sir ,

Good Morning Sudhir.

 

Aditya Music was in the business of distribution and marketing of other music companies for the entire state of Andhra Pradesh till 1996. Since 1996, we have started acquiring our own music rights under the banner of Aditya Music. In the year 2000, we started our own plant for manufacture of audio cassettes. Apart from the new movie's copyrights, we have acquired music labels such as SHIVA MUSICALS, ECHO, LEO & MARUTI MUSIC. Inspite of being a market leader in Tollywood, we expanded into Tamil, Malayalam, Carnatic Classical Music along with a catalogue of 150 super hit video ( Home Video ) titles. Today our total catalogue strength stands around 2150 titles.   

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  • Since your early days of operations, till recently, ADITYA MUSIC has been non-aggressive on the DEVOTIONAL music front. Why this sudden change in strategy?

Yes you are right. Earlier we were non-agressive but now we are very agressive on the devotional front especially after the new labels we have acquired. Our recent acquisitions as I mentioned earlier, have given us a good launch pad in the devotional music market. Some of our recent devotional hits are SHIVOHAM, JAI HANUMAN, SARVAM SAI, SRI KRISHNA DARSHANAM, SRI ANNAMACHARYA NITYA SANKEERTANAM, THYAGARAJA PANCHARATNA KRITHIS by DR.MANGALAMPALLI,  BALA MURALI KRISHNA and ANNAMACHARYA KRITHIS by popular artists. Today, we have around 200 top devotional  albums in our catalogue.

 

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Our latest Tollywood acquisitions include :-

1. DON starring Nagarjuna & Anushkha

2. SWAGATHAM starring Jagapthi Babu, Anushkha & Bhoomika. 

3. VAANA produced & directed by M.S.Raju, who is considered as the Yash Chopra of Tollywood

4. KRISHNA starring Ravi Teja & Trisha.

Anushka, Telugu Actress

Our forthcoming releases are 3 of the biggest movies of Tollywood ever made :-

1. JHALSAA starring Pawan Kalyan & Iliyana.

2. UNTITLED MOVIE of DILRAJU ( a famous Tollywood producer ) starring Allu Arjun.

3. ONTARI starring Gopichand & Bhavana.

 

Trisha, Telugu Actress

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As far as the future is concerned we have recently entered other south Indian markets like TAMIL, MALAYLAM & CARNATIC MUSIC. We expect a very healthy growth in these markets. Also we are entering into Movie Production. We will launch the movie production division of ADITYA MUSIC in the market by producing Telugu Films initially and then slowly take on the other regional film markets in South India.

As far as sales figures are concerned, for the current March ending we have closed our revenue books at 15 crores. Now as far as the future projections on sales figures are concerned I think its too early to comment on that since the markets have been really dynamic in the face of changing trends. Also the market size in the DIGITAL space has been growing stronger. All I would like to comment for the future, is that we are hopeful of a very good growth than what we witnessed in the past years.


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SOURCES say these days Umesh Gupta is busy acquiring film music at astronomical prices. And if he is not doing so then he is in the midst of controversies.

Related Article -
Umesh Gupta of Aditya Music, thanking Nagarjuna and producer D Sivaprasada Reddy for giving another musical hit through their audio company says, 'It is Aditya Audio which had released the audio of several films produced on the banner of Kamakshi Movies including 'Auto Driver, Sitarama Raju, Yeduruleni Manishi and Nenunnanu'. 'Boss' had become an addition to this winning track. Music provided by Kalyani Malik and Harry Anand was terrific. All the tunes are quite novel. I believe, the audio sales would further go up after the release of the film. We are planning to release audio CDs in the next five days.'

Sources say you have been acquiring every movie that NAGARJUNA is a part of even if you have had to pay an astronomical price for it. Is there any special connection there? Nagarjuna

 

See first of all let me tell you that ADITYA Music has been having a good rapport with all the producers & film actors in the entire South Indian Film Industry. So its not just Nagarjuna we have good relations with but also with Chiranjeevi and super star Rajnikant. Besides we are acquiring the music rights of 80% of the movies produced in Telugu so it is obvious that we will have good relations with super stars. As for your question pertaining to Nagarjuna, coincidentally it just happened that since our early days we have been producing most of Nagarjuna’s movies. Also NAGARJUNA has given us very good hits like Sri RAMADAASU. As for paying astronomical prices is concerned, we always calculate our risks against our investments and acquire the rights likewise. Depending on the producers and the star value sometimes we have to cough up a heavier investment. In such case we always evaluate with our past experiences and past experiences with Nagarjuna have been good.

 

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Related Article –
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
Aditya Music bags Shankar Dada audio rights for a Record price

Aditya Music bagged the rights for a sum of 1.15 crores but it touches nearly 1.5 cores inside sources told.
It is highest paid in the Tollywood till date, as the audio rights prices faced a slump. Big banner movies which easily fetched a crore before, only fetch 65-70 lakhs today. Shankar Dada MBBS was released into the market with an initial bunch of 7.5 lakhs. The record label plans to break that record by releasing this movie with 8 lakh cassettes

  • Umesh SIr, Are the profits that huge in the regional film music market especially in the face of ever increasing piracy?

All I would like to say to that is There is no truth in that statement.

See firstly you must understand that signing up a CHIRANJEEVI film is always costly. I won’t like to comment on the official figures that we paid to acquire the film but all I’d like to say is that it’s far too less than what the media has been speculating.

See Sudhir, Every movie is a value addition to our vast movie catalogue. You must be aware that we have a catalogue of more than 800 films in Telugu alone. So we don’t calculate sales or cost benefit analysis of individual movies. The strategy is you have to keep buying new movies to push your old catalogue. If you don’t have new movies your old catalogue will badly suffer.

See New movies sell faster so typically our dealer buys small numbers of old catalogue with new movies. This way the dealer also doesn’t suffer since he makes his margins on old catalogue as well as the new ones. So regardless of the fact that the movie is a hit or a flop the dealer always stands to gain. Besides we are always able to exercise the model of bundling new songs with the old ones.


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The music industry in India has reportedly been facing turbulent times in the past few years.

Absolutely Yes. There will be major consolidation not just in the south indian market but in the entire Indian music market.

The last year we bought over MARUTI INTERNATIONAL of Tamil Nadu. We are planning a couple more this year.

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  • What is the kind of market in South India for Classical Music? It is alleged that you have almost never been inclined to the Classical Music Market although there is a huge market in the entire South India for the same?

Yes you are right. Earlier we were not inclined towards Classical Music. But like I just mentioned the acquistion of MARUTI INTERNATIONAL has given us our much needed launch in the Carnatic Classical Music Market. They have a vast catalogue of 200 titles of carnatic and classical music. So very soon you will ADITYA MUSIC aggressively pitched in the Classical Music market. In fact all our titles are ready and this month itself you will see our first release.

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  • Sir, a company of your size and stature has surprisingly stayed away from the international market. Does it get any better or worse for REGIONAL MUSIC companies like yours when we look at it from an international perspective? Internationally, Is there a market for ADITYA MUSIC?

Its not that we haven’t tried expanding into the overseas market. Unfortunately due to lack of adequate sales we have had to withdraw back. But we have maintained our dealer networks in the Gulf countries and Singapore which are doing extremely well now. But as far as the US & Canada are concerned we are not present.
One of the biggest reasons we cited for poor sales in these 2 countries is dipping physical sales. But we are seeing a very unique trend of parallel export. Let me explain this.
See we are priced at very low MRP’s. Our albums each containing 10 songs and more are priced at Rs.40/- which translates to a US dollar. If you compare that with the price of a single soundtrack sold online we have a huge winning edge. Therefore our dealers are selling our products in the overseas market through their business associates and personal connections. So although there are no direct exports from our company to the US & Canada, indirectly it touches our consumers and we feel the direct affect on our sales figures.

 

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Related Article - Aditya Music is bent on cracking down on Online Music piracy.

Mr. Umesh, Managing Director at Aditya Music says "We are aware of many of these websites who are doing these illegal activities from both within and outside India, especially the US, Canada and Europe. We are going after all these websites who are publishing our content and infringing upon our copyrights. We will come down upon them with severity."

  • Your recent proactiveness in the online space is quite visible. Tell us a little about your strategy to sell music online?

As far as accessibility to our music on the internet is concerned, currently we are tied up with raaga.com and a couple of other online music stores to play our titles. This year we will be putting up our own online music store. And as far as ringtones and mobile music is concerned we have our tie ups with some major players in the respective market space and are consistently working out with companies who have taken the initiative to come to us with attractive proposals.

 

  • Today, one of the biggest problems every online store faces is the YOUTUBE phenomenon. i.e. :- A company like yours spends precious resources building an online store. But after the first rush of consumers, they themselves put up your content on youtube for free which in turn is accessed by consumers worldwide, thus ruining your projections and sales figures. How do you plan to combat this problem?

The Youtube problem is a new phenomenon and we are yet to study this. But we are confident that we will be able to overcome this situation and go ahead.

 

  • Do you think there is a market in India for online music stores given the fact that there are still a lot of payment & delivery mechanism problems?

Yes we are expecting those problems as well but I think these are global problems which will be solved in the near future.

 

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  • What is the kind of market in South India for the Home Video Segment? How do you plan to pitch yourself against Moser Baer who has started ruling this space in South India which is traditionally considered as your territory?

Currently we have a prescence in the HOME VIDEO segment, although I agree we were not very aggressively pitched till the recent past. Since the past 2 years we have been selectively picking up good films especially the ones whose music rights are with us and are marketing it well. Our price is the factor which has been under pressure after the entrance of these new players like you said. Earlier too, our pricing was lesser as compared to national level companies who sell at Rs.199/- . We were selling at Rs.75, but now we have revised our pricing strategy. We have made 3 pricing categories with MRP’s i.e. Rs.50/-, Rs.40/- & Rs.75/-. We have been getting a favourable response with this new pricing and I think we are pitched well now.

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__Umesh GUpta with AP Chief Minister

  • Aditya Music being the biggest south Indian music company, has the responsibility to grow the market space in terms of infusing fresh talent into the industry. It is alleged that you are much too stuck up in TOLLYWOOD films and have never paid any attention towards developing the rock or the pop culture in the South Indian Market space. Why?

Let me tell you something about regional markets versus national and international markets. If you take a Punjab or Maharashtra the movie market in these regional markets is extremely small in size hence the impetus has to be given to developing alternate markets like POP or ROCK.

In contrast if you look at Andhra we witness 150 movies every year which translates to more than 10 movie releases in a month. Aditya Music has a marketshare of almost 80% in the Andhra film Music market. This is one of the biggest reasons we don’t have anytime nor the inclination for developing or marketing any other alternate music forms. Another thing is, due to so many releases, the consumer also gets a wide choice of 12 -15 new titles every month. If you see these new film releases every artist gets a chance, be it newcomers or senior artists. The Telugu film music market is so huge, that it accomodates even a lot of bollywood singers like Adnan Sami. Hence the trend is that, fresh talent or artist in Andhra would usually get into film music than any alternate music. Besides for any artist, the remuneration, exposure and popularity in Andhra is much better in film music than any other alternate form.

Also Andhra being a small state, we have a small territory. These POP or ROCK albums or private albums as we call them, require a lot of promotion and marketing. If you shoot for a hindi title the market is very big. The territory is the Indian consumer globally. But compare that with Telugu, the territory is very small. But the production costs for both the hindi as well as the Telugu pop album are the same. Hence in those terms too it is not viable for us to get into alternate music forms. Its not that we haven’t tried these but except for a couple of albums others didn’t do well.

 

  • Like some of your successful counterparts like SONY BMG (The Indian Idol) are you planning to get actively involved in any Talent Hunt Show?

Yes. We might plan for it but not in the near future.

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 Sir, I hope u don’t mind me bombarding u with some Anti-Piracy Questions :-

  • One of the things that the industry as well as your consumer understood is that You were the first music company to slash down prices to combat piracy. With that I presume that sales must have gone up and it was an effective measure to fight piracy but have the profits gone up or has your bottomline taken a beating?

You are right. With our current pricing structure we are witnessing exponential sales. That is the reason we are at this position. As for your question on profitability, Sudhir if the profits were not there then we would have shut shop long back.

 

  • So Sir, are you implying that the reason piracy is so rampant is due to the higher priced Cd's and cassettes?

Yes, high pricing is one of the reasons for piracy.

 

  • Are you planning to continue with this pricing structure? Or is this a strategy to acquire key south Indian companies and then increase the pricing again?

No. We don’t plan to increase the pricing in the near future. I am telling you this  because we are a company with a lean structure. Our overheads are very limited and hence we are committed to our low pricing strategy. Aditya Music will continue to deliver quality products at the best price affordable to our consumers.

 

 

  • Does ADITYA MUSIC see itself getting involved on a SOLO basis in the anti-piracy crusade just as companies like T-series are doing it?
    First of all, let me tell you no music company can fight PIRACY all by themselves. So NO, we don’t ever plan to fight Piracy singularly or SOLO as you put it. We will always stick to IMI and fight alongside them.

 

  • Since the beginning the IMI has been strong in the North Indian markets. Is it strong in the south Indian markets as well?

I can’t comment on the entire south India but as far as Andhra is concerned IMI is extremely strong. They have a very good team here. We have regular meetings where we assess the situation on piracy and discuss major breakthroughs and the future course of action to be taken. I’d like to proudly say that it is only due to the IMI's efforts that today there is a fear in the minds of the pirates in the whole of Andhra Pradesh.

 

            

  • Sir, I see that you are very staunch in your commitment to the IMI. In the past few years that you have been a part of the IMI have you seen any significant change that IMI’s efforts have made to the music industry? Will you say that they have made a lot of progress?

Absolutely YES. There is a lot of progress that the IMI has made as far as the South Indian Market especially Andhra Pradesh is concerned. Recently, on the national level also, we have seen some very good conviction cases.

  • Sir when you say that the IMI has made considerable progress in curbing PIRACY, can you also say that the IMI’s efforts have made a direct impact in boosting the sales of your company?

Sudhir, I won’t say that the IMI’s efforts have boosted the sales of my company but YES I would like to mention that, if the IMI was not there to curb piracy our sales would have drastically fallen. So in a way I can confidently state that the IMI has helped maintain the sales of every music company in India.

 

  • Sir you have gone on record that IMI has helped maintain your sales. But despite investing precious resources by the IMI the pirate still continues to be in business. Do you really think these anti-piracy raids are the best solution to the dynamically changing operations of the pirates?

You are right Sudhir.

I think alongwith raids we should also have a two point strategy :-

  1. To systematically give the anti piracy raids a wide publicity and promote it within the legal structure.
  2. The common man doesn’t have adequate knowledge about PIRACY. Public Awareness is the key word here. Awareness has to be spread among the people by the IMI, the artists from the industry as well as by the music companies. One needs to educate the people about the illegality and consequences of buying and downloading pirated music.

 

  • In addition to the already exisiting efforts of The IMI, is there something more you expect from The IMI ?

We expect the IMI to work for achieving the results, for which it was established. Dedicated staff is an asset to an organisation. Apart from its primary activites, IMI should also look into peripheral problems of music industry such as taxation etc.,

 

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Just to end it on a lighter note

 

. Sir, are you a music buff? If YES what kind of music do You listen to?

Yes. I like Ghazals, old Hindi songs and I am a fan of Kishore Kumar & Jagjit Singh.

No.

 

I would say it just happened. In 1979 we started our own retail music showroom named SANGEET SAGAR. From that we expanded to music distribution then we got onto being a music label. I come from very humble beginnings and have reached where I am today.

Its indeed an achievement to make till here from such humble beginnings.             
Thank You

.Would you like to say something to our readers

Don't indulge in piracy. Don't encourage piracy. It is the duty of every Indian to protect and preserve the rich musical heritage of our great country.

. With that I’d like to end our interview. It was a pleasure speaking to you. Thank you.

Thank you Sudhir.
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© The Indian Music Industry - 2007.  Content Conceptualised, Collected, Crafted & Cared by DREAM-FACTORY