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MUMBAI, June 11 – Although India is known to be home to legions of music fans, they are not particularly in love with music streaming platforms. And to understand why, look no further than YouTube and other video platforms that billions of people across the country love to watch music videos. Let’s take a closer look.
Since its launch in 2007, JioSaavn has set itself the goal of making Indians addicted to streaming music. And it’s off to a good start. The service had 104 million monthly active users in December 2019. It even quadrupled its paid subscriber base during 2020, according to the trade publication Music Business Worldwide. But that is nothing compared to the billions of Indians who use YouTube and other similar sites every day to listen to music online for free.
A report from the Indian Music Industry looked into this phenomenon by interviewing 3,000 internet users aged 16 to 64. Almost all (94%) used YouTube or Vevo to listen to music in 2019. Many cite the lack of cost. and wide availability of music, especially new and popular content, as major draws for these platforms. The presence of videos is also important to them, which is not surprising given the popularity of musical cinema in the country.
Integration of video into music streaming
Indian music streaming platforms like JioSaavn and Gaana are looking to incorporate this appeal of video into their marketing strategy to increase user numbers. Industry No. 2 player JioSaavn recently launched a feature set around music videos within the service, including playlists and the “Music TV†channel.
JioSaavn users can now access music channels and video playlists through the service’s home page. TV channels offer recommended videos one after another, while the video playlists are sorted by mood, genre, and artist. This new feature allows users to juggle the videos they want to watch and the songs they want to listen to.
Before launching JioSaavnTV, the music streaming service had already tried video with Shorties. This feature allows artists to create 15-second looping video clips while a song is playing on the platform. A format very close to the Spotify Canvas, which allows a 120% increase in listening to a song according to the Swedish giant. Meanwhile, the Shorties feature has registered 200 million views since its launch in June 2020, according to the Indian edition of Business Insider.
Not to be outdone, Gaana is also in the race for innovative music streaming services to include more video in their offerings. The platform launched the HotShots feature in its app in July to allow its users to create short viral videos … much like TikTok. Strange coincidence considering that the Chinese app was banned in India in the same month. HotShots is currently not available on Gaana, which explains in a statement that changes are underway in the app and the feature is no longer available to its users. – ETX Studio
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