 My name is Madhu Nupadhyay, I am delighted to be hosting a set of great session and throughout Celebrating a musical day with World Music Day. Let's get ready and begin the morning already As we celebrate the World Music Day also celebrating the World International Yoga Day So lots of laughter and great memories. Let's get all this together as I welcome to you a very amazing speaker and Absolute is just a term till you define this man who come joins us with the experience he holds I'm happy to light an honor to welcome and start the session here of World Music Day the Musicking 4.0 with us is president and CEO Indian music industry the one and only Mr. Blaise Fernandez with us right now who's gonna talk on a case For pre-market economics in the Indian recorded music industry. Hello, sir. Good morning to you and happy World Music Day Thank you, Mithin. Thank you very much Mithin. Happy World Music Day Our industry colleagues people our friends family Well-wishers and fans who've kind of joined in from various parts of the world Mithin before I kind of You know even start my My keynote address That's kind of you know in normal circumstances viewed I've stood up in mark of respect But that's kind of take about 30 seconds off and maybe you probably can play a more somber tune to spare a moment for family members friends Colleagues frontline workers were with us at the last World Music Day and You know COVID-19 has taken them away. So let's kind of spend some time because you know this time You know, there are family members. There are friends that are industry colleagues a lot of our colleagues across the industry Advertising music etc. They'll have no I no longer there today. It's kind of you know play for them something which is India memory much more distinct. That's it. That's rather than silence. That's kind of order them with a nice musical note in their memory Thank you. Thank you, Mithin, and I'm that note Congratulations, Anurag Ruhel and the entire E4M team music in team or I mean four years Okay, time flies, but hopefully next year if all of us gets get vaccinated I think the industry has a role to play. I'll come to that later We'll meet in a physical format before I kind of jump into my keynote You know, I'd also like to kind of send a message across to the industry and the entire ecosystem that we need to use our talents to spread the message of vaccination and You know try and get as many of our colleagues our colleagues family members our colleagues You know people who work with us, especially the blue collar workers the temporary workers the janitorial staff the security staff Inoculating them is not enough. I think let's take it upon ourselves as an industry to try and is present the message of vaccination and You know each one of us if we can kind of take that I'll try and get you know for people vaccinated outside my family I think you know, we'll be able to meet in the physical world rather than the physical world next year Uh my keynote address for this session Is the you know the ad what I'm advocating for is a case for free market economics in the recorded music industry If you go to the imi website, this report is available I do not want to make this into a presentation because it'll kind of get monotonous in the lecture But the entire report is available in the public domain This report was authored by me with good support and solid support from riddhula and dima in In the imi team and you know dima and riddhula were backed by aria and genel So I do parallels because and the reason why i do parallels is Uh rohe, I think you're you need to mute your mic. Thank you. Thanks. Uh, I do parallels because film across the country and music are conjoint twins separated at the kumbh mela And then eventually land up on the silver screen Depending on market to market 70 percent of Uh 70 to 80 percent and you know year on year depending on you know Are you have uh You have you know the ecos Same film music in india is film based Okay, osts. They call them soundtracks or you know or you know audio rights, whatever you want to call it But it's film based Now if you actually see, you know reforms in the film industry and I I was part of that in the early part in late 1990s and the early part of the century has actually taken the film industry to a 19 to 20 000 crore industry and I'm talking about 19 2019 because that's what the last normal year. I'm not getting you know, you can come back You can come back to me and say but 2020 was a washout. Yes. Sure. That's not a normal year But the best year was 2019 everything was normal life was normal. We lived a normal life and the film industry was at 19 000 crores and The music industry in 2019 was struggling at 1200 1300 crores and When I looked at the numbers and I said, what is it? That actually Strangulates our growth, you know, if the film industry is moved on 70% to 80% of music in India's film based Why is one industry surging ahead of the other industry is being strangulated? And I think the the discovering that report was The film industry by and large had an absolute free run No government income, you know, in terms of entertainment tax tax is part of life, you know Pay our tax when you're born pay our tax When you die, it's an even playing field. It's not specifically that in the films are a tax Tamil films are not tax. It's it's a level playing field of You kind of, you know, there was no price mechanisms in terms of price controls And because of free market economics in a nutshell Today you have a 20000 crore film industry That's the first part The second part is Look at, you know, and they call it the flywheel effect because the flywheel is once the big wheel starts moving all the wheels within the wheels Starts, you know, moving at the same pace Today you have the multiplex boom because they were free market economics Investments came into infrastructure more employment was generated Because of more employment was generated and there were more screening opportunities I remember when I released a good film like LA Confidential Which was a fabulous film, you know, I got one show in sterling cinema at 10 o'clock in the night And the film lasted for one is two weeks after that it was removed at like 95 capacity Today multiplexes have seen new genres emerged today multiplexes have seen Films travel from the north to the south and south to the north As a result of which the entire ecosystem was built up And most important a rising tide raises all boats So if you check in that report You will see what a spot boy was making 10 years ago 20 years ago and now What a driver, you know, what they call, you know, the people who are the drivers in terms of the vanity vans, etc etc was making in the period of time and every, you know, a rising tide raises all ports So while you probably had, you know, huge increases in terms of wages and fees charged by the stars the entire ecosystem benefited And you also got very powerful genres being made, you know, in terms of English English In terms of, you know, you got new stars who emerged and, you know, discovery took place in terms of new stars, new talent And the entire ecosystem benefited. You had a Bahubali who came in from the south and captured the imagination of the entire part and part of the north and throughout the world And my plea to the government of India is Let these free market economics Play out in the recorded music industry. The first thing today is It will attract domestic investments It'll attract international investments It will attract infrastructure investments at the end of the day When you had free market economics in the music industry Where global giants like village roadshow came up and set up the first multiplex At you know, PVR sake, which was the old Anupam. That's the first multiplex not the second one at sake And today because of that you have an entire infrastructure And free market economics in the music industry happens, you'll have a vibrant life economics economy system You'll have people like AEG coming up and setting up an O2, Manchester United, Manchester Manchesterina In India, you probably have festivals like, you know, the festivals that you have all over the world And at a long story short, if you actually see the data that is available in the film in my report You know today, it's not only the film industry, but the entire ecosystem In Europe, which runs into a few billions of dollars, which is like 10 times more than the film industry because that includes You know sale of ticketing revenues in terms of life concerts, etc, etc So I think and lastly It exports The British film and the British PPI, the British music industry, which the IMI equivalent Jeff Taylor has said that 500 500 million pounds is what the British music industry earned in terms of exports and by 2030, which is like, you know, nine years away They're going to touch a billion pounds, a billion pounds on exports, not on domestic consumption I think given our diversity, even our cultural strengths, given the fact that our music is melodious, our music has soul India can be amongst the top 10 markets with ease if these economic reforms take place and they take place Soon and I think I think this is what we are advocating for as an industry A rising tide rises, erases all the boats and I will stop here because I've just been 15 minutes So I will stop there and happy to take questions from my co-panelist on the panel. Thank you The report is available on the IMI website is www.indianmi.org So please do visit the website and the report is available. Thank you Thank you, Mr. Belize. That was indeed very straightforward I like how you make your point about music and the industry and the fraternity But I like how you mentioned one word, we are a country where tax is part of our life So, I had just one question if I am permitted to ask the question 2020 and 2021 saw a rise at the same time it saw the depth of music going down in a country and globally as well But in the year 2022, which is the coming year, where do you see the new music genre or the new musicians coming and trying to establish the market in these unprecedented times and when the things get better Okay, so I think in India we have a slight dip in terms of our growth rate because of the pandemic globally I think the industry was about 5-6% in terms of growth But it's not about the pandemic, pre-pandemic or post-pandemic It's something called what they call the smartphone Currently we have an ecosystem depending on who you talk and which report you read But for the brevity, let's kind of take 450 million smartphones Within the smartphone penetration is now going into the B, C, D, E centers of India Nobody knows how they consume the music, what they're going to consume the music But I think there's going to be a lot of The regional genres, there's going to be a lot of focus on the sub-regional I think Atoll, you need to mute Thanks, there's going to be a lot of focus on sub-regional genres So for example in Maharashtra, where we are sitting right now, it is like 5-6 very distinct dialects And each of these dialects have their own culture, each of the dialects have their own heritage The Konkani's have one heritage, the Kohli's have another And Vidarbha, Marathwada, Sandesh, Western Maharashtra, they have their own distincts So I think not 2022, but going forward, you're going to see the emergence of the local players, the regional players emerge, and that's my prediction And that's why I said that the cover of our report is the entire length and breadth of the country With 26 languages, 26 distinct cultures If I'm to do crystal ball gazing, that's what I will put on the table today Thank you so much, Mr. Blase. One last question, rather a thought that I want to ask you is World Music Day, if you had to put words together on a code to describe World Music Day, what would your code be? And my pen is on with a piece of paper And I want to make a note of a code that you think suits the best for the World Music Day Music is therapeutic, it cuts across caste, creed, religion, and race Last day we all kind of shook a leg to Jerusalem, which came from the African continent Who knows, the next couple of years ago, music is therapeutic, music is therapy And especially in these times where you need therapy in terms of, you know, you can have all the vitamins, you can have all the D3s and the vitamin Cs, but I think music is therapeutic What a lovely thought there, yes, I agree with you Music is indeed therapy and it can cure anything and everything your way Mentally, physically, or emotionally, there's always an answer and solution with music Thank you so much for joining us here this morning, indeed great to hear from you And I love your thought, very straightforward thought about the music, about Indian music Going forward and what's going to come our way I wish you a great day, happy World Music Day And a very happy International Yoga Day as well And a lot of luck, be safe and take care of yourself