Gramophone Company of India (Gramophone) appears to have its act in place to maintain its premier position in the Indian music industry. It has the largest number of music rights in the Indian music industry with a catalogue of 135,000 songs spanning a time period of about 60 years.
The company is shifting focus from just being another music selling company to a global music software major. The company had launched its e-commerce site in the USA and then expanded to Europe and will be doing so in India too. Gramophone offers wide range of Indian music compact discs and DVDs for sale on the net.
It has not confined itself to just Hindi music, and has also entered the regional music market. It recently acquired the Master Recording Company, which owned the Sangeeta brand of music catalogues. This has given the company access to more than 2,000 titles in Tamil. It has also entered into a seven-year licensing agreement with Pyramid International, a Singapore-based company. Under the arrangement, which is effective from 1 April 2000, the audio rights of Pyramid's catalogue of 501 Tamil film songs, 205 carnatic classical, 109 Malayalam film songs, 20 Hindi film songs and 19 carnatic devotional pieces would be marketed by RPG Global in Asia and parts of Africa.
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Gramophone also plans to enter the Bengali market with its own catalogue of Bengali songs. It also plans to enter Bangladesh market, which has a huge potential. Further, it has also entered into a tie-up with Maharaja Group of Sri Lanka and has set up franchise arrangement with Indonesia to sell its own hits in the local languages. It is now looking at similar arrangement in Mauritius and Fuji.
The company is promoting its own brand, Gramophonewhich will eventually replace its famous HMV brand. It will be using the HMV brand for another 25 years in an agreement with EMI records of England. The Gramophone brand will be owned by the company and will be used to market live recording and other special products.
On the products side, it is also producing CDs at its own facilities to improve margins. In November 1999, it had announced its plans to set up kiosks where the customer can choose from an array of songs mounted on a touch screen. The customer can choose the numbers by playing the pre-recorded demos indicated on the computer to give an order. The compact disc will be delivered to the customer in 24 hours. A customer can also decide the design on the jacket of the compact disc and can have his own signature printed on the jacket.
It also plans to merge its subsidiaries - RPG Music International and Gramco Music International - with itself. It will be exiting the film production business which was being undertaken by Gramco. Also, it plans to retire its debt from the Rs 124.95 crore proceeds raised from its private placement issue. These funds will also be utilised by the company to for its major projects in entertainment and media business including its plans to digitalise all its catalogues and make new acquisitions.
Saregama Plc, another step forward
RPG Music International, which was earlier the international division of Gramophone, was later corporatised to form Saregama Plc. The company went public in August 1999 through an issue of 2.66 million shares of 1p each at a price of 100 p. RPG Music International holds 70 per cent stake in Saregama Plc. RPG Music has also transferred its rights to manufacture and market Indian music in the UK, the US, Europe, Canada, South Africa and the Caribbean Islands for 20 years for a consideration