The sound of southern music

After news channels, music channels are singing local tunes on television in south India. In a span of five months, two new channels are making music.

After Southern Spice Music and Sun Network's Sun Music, the latter has launched two more channels. Branded Kiran and Adhithya, they are aimed at the Malayalee and Telugu youth, respectively. Two months ago, Raj Network's Musix which was yanked off the air in 2004 was relaunched, taking the total music channel tally to five.

While SS Music is a multilingual music channel that airs songs in English and all the four South Indian languages -- Kannada, Telugu, Malayalam and Tamil, Sun Music and Raj's Musix are Tamil music channels.

"There was a need in the southern region to cater to youth who are not inclined to watching soaps," says media baron Kalanithi Maran, chairman, Sun Network.

Also, like in the rest of India, the youth is a big draw. According to market research agency Hansa Research, 42.6 lakh (4.3 million) of south India's 96.8 lakh (9.7 million) cable and satellite population comprises audience between 12 and 25 years of age. No wonder then that Sun Network rechristened and relaunched its Tamil music channel SCV as Sun Music.

For broadcasters, launching music channels is only a line extension. "It is a natural progression to utilise their movie library with no large investments. The integration happens at an incremental cost.

It also opens a potential window for advertisements by offering a complete bouquet of channels," points out K Sathyanarayana, media director at advertising agency RK Swamy BBDO.

Maran says that when Sun Network buys a film copyright, its songs appear on the music channel. "For us, our overheads are common, it is just an extension of an existing infrastructure," he adds. Sun TV, the flagship brand of the network, has Rs 211 crore revenue, a major share in the Rs 546 crore (Rs 5.46 billion) total revenue of Sun Network, according to Media Direction, the media buying arm of R K Swamy BBDO.

When Fortune Media, promoters of Martin Lottery, wanted to telecast its live lottery draw, it set up SS Music as its launch channel, with an investment of Rs 4 crore (Rs 40 million). Last year, MTV's global promoter Viacom Inc was eyeing a majority stake in SS Music but the deal could not be sealed owing to differences in valuations.

Today, the channel does not rely on the lottery draw for its revenues (this accounted for 80 per cent of the revenues till 2003). Instead, advertisements of brands like Pepsi, Coca Cola, Hero Honda, Perfetti, Lotte and Samsung bring in the big bucks.

Media Direction estimates that music channels account for Rs 84 crore (Rs 840 million) or just 2 per cent of the Rs 4,200 crore (Rs 42 billion) advertising revenue generated by the TV industry, with a big share going to MTV and Channel V.

Also, music channels attract a floating viewership "while entertainment channels have audiences by appointment". Programmes on music channels do not enjoy more than 15 minutes of continued viewership and hence attract a uniform ad rate unlike the mainline channels, which jack up rates during prime time. Rajiv Nambiar, CEO, Raj Television Network, says that this is a big attraction for retail advertisers.

The southern channels are not making profits yet but Maran says: "Indian music channels are free-to-air unlike their foreign peers. So we should be making money."