Hitting the low notes

In 2000, the music of Rakesh Roshan's Kaho Na...Pyaar Hai reportedly sold over 80 lakh units. In 2003, the bigger hit Koi Mil Gaya sold under 10 lakh. In 1997 Yash Chopra's Dil To Pagal Hai sold over 1 crore units. In 2004, the music of Veer Zaara sold only 10-15 lakh. The biggest musical hits of 2005, Bunty Aur Babli and Zeher have reportedly sold only 7 to 8 lakh units. Make way for the wailing violins. The Bollywood music market has crashed, slipping down to Rs 600 crore from its peak of around Rs 1,200 crore a few years ago. And even those weak at arithmetic can see the splinters flying. Sanjay Leela Bhansali���s Devdas (Universal) and Karan Johar���s Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham (Sony) were perhaps the last of the Mohicans to have been sold at Rs 11 crore to music companies. Now, by all accounts, the days of plump paycheques are over. Attests Johar: ���I got only Rs 4 crore for Kal Ho Na Ho.������ Subhash Ghai, the big daddy of musicals like Karz, Khalnayak, Saudagar and Taal, avers that music sales have decreased by 50 to 60 per cent. ���I got Rs 70 lakh for Khalnayak, Rs 5 crore for Taal and Rs 10 crore for Yaadein by the music companies,������ he says. ���While Taal did double and triple the business, the music company was never able to recover the money for Yaadein.������ A biggie like Lagaan whose music rights were snapped up by Sony for Rs 7 crore also reportedly failed to make money for the company. The irony is that while music sales have slid dramatically, listnership has gone up fourfold, says Ghai. Obviously then, it's technology and newer avenues that are spoiling the music industry's scene.���In the past, people who travelled by car comprised the bulk of consumers who bought cassettes and CDs. Today they prefer to listen to FM radio,��� says Nabeel Abbas, CEO of Epigram, adding that in today's recessionary times, even a sale of 2-3 lakh units is considered good as against the earlier 30 lakh units. ���Apart from FM, it's gadgets like the Ipod,���he adds. ���If you can get 10,000 songs in one shot on an Ipod, why would you want to buy a CD of a film, which usually has one great track and four average numbers?��� According to Kulmeet Makkar, CEO, Saregama, the increase in piracy and illegal forms of music like file-sharing, the burning of CDs and downloading and storage of music in MP3 formats have created a huge dent in the music business. ���The youth was a big target audience for us, but now they're into burning CDs borrowed from friends and so on,���he says. ���That's cut into a bulk of the sales.��� Ghai also attributes the slide to other reasons like listener fatigue. ���Songs are aired months before the release on television and FM channels,��� he says. ���Sometimes the listener is so worn after hearing a song 300 times that the last thing he's going to do is go out and buy a CD.��� But often, says Makkar, song promos do help the film���the catchy title song of Dus drew the audience to the cinema halls and got the film a great initial. There's also the reverse effect���when a film does well, there is a sizeable pick-up in music sales, as in the case of Murder, Dhoom and Bunty Aur Babli. ���The volume of sales for Murder went up by 80 per cent post the film's success,��� says Makkar. Singer Sonu Nigam has a different take on the scenario. ���The market isn't bad, the marketing is,��� he insists. ���Didn't the television show Indian Idol create stars out of unknown people like Abhijeet Sawant, Amit Sana and Rahul Vaidya? Sawant's album was a success. You have to build a marketing strategy around a singer like, say, Sony did with my recent album Chanda Ki Doli. The trouble is that most songs today are advertised as Shah Rukh Khan and Abhishek Bachchan songs. Singers are never given respect or money. It may sound petty, but we weren't even invited to the Main Hoon Naa or Bunty Aur Babli music releases.��� Music companies are looking for solutions to the slump. One is the jettisoning of outright acquisition deals in favour of royalty payments to film producers. Makkar cites the instance of Murder. ���Instead of paying Mukesh Bhatt Rs 50 lakh upfront, Saregama suggested a profitsharing basis,��� he says. ���Bhatt ended up making a profit of Rs 2.5 crore. So it's a win-win situation for the producers and the music company.��� The charts may be under attack, the musical barcodes may have dipped perilously low, yet hope still floats with musical hits like Bunty Aur Babli. The strains of music continue to float above the din of the big crash. Only a tad muted perhaps.