Music season spells boom in audio sales

Last updated at 5.00 pm, Dec 6, 2007

by Narayanan Nambudripad

CHENNAI: “The sale of devotional and Carnatic music CDs usually increases during this festival season as the people who come to watch the concerts end up buying their favourite music,” said Moser Baer Saleswoman, K Vasanthi at a stall set up at the Narada Gana Sabha in preparation for the month long December Music festival that commences on Dec. 15.

Sabhas across the city like Music Academy, Narada Gana Sabha, and Sankara Hall, have stalls set up by different music distribution companies. Some of the major record companies are Moser Baer India Limited, Rajalakshmi Audio, Charsur Digital Workstation and Carnatica. According to Vasanthi, the highest selling CDs at their stall last year included stalwarts like Balamuralikrishna, Sanjay Subramaniam. She said that it cost them Rs 30,000 to set up the stall in the Narada Gana Sabha, charged by the owners of the auditorium, not the sabha. The cost varied from sabha to sabha depending on the size of the stalls, the position and the sabha that the stall was set up in.

Sankara Hall at Mylapore holds a sale of devotional and Carnatic music CDs every year in the month of December, sponsored by AVM Sound Zone. This hall houses a music shop throughout the year and a special exhibition in the adjacent auditorium during the December Music Festival. The CDs on sale range from Carnatic to Bollywood music. "There is a wide range of music that is sold here during the festival. We use the festival to sell music," said organiser, R Saravanan. "There is a definite increase in sales because the CDs are cheaper and concert-goers might prefer to buy a certain CD after watching the artiste perform," he added. He added that the best sellers were Sanjay Subramaniam, T M Krishna, and Aruna Sairam as of last year. But also noted that older artistes like G.N Balasubramaniam and Ariyakudi Ramanuja Iyengar were still favourites.

On the other hand, Charsur Digital Workstation, another leading music distribution company based in Mylapore refused to acknowledge the increase in sale during the festival season. “We can’t say whether there is an increase in the number of CDs sold during the festival. It varies from every year,” said Secretary, Charsur Digital Workstation, P Anbarasan on the sale of music. Speaking to Digantik, Anbarasan said that during the festival, the sabhas tied up with the music distribution companies and allocated stalls to companies, which served as convenient purchasing points for music audiences. The major musicians that the company marketed included Sanjay Subramaniam, Veenai E.Gayathri and S.Sowmya among others. He said that Charsur brought out exclusive editions of certain live concerts like ones involving Sanjay Subramaniam with the concerned copyright. "But there are no copyright issues as we give the artist their due credit and percentage," he said. He said that apart from Charsur, other companies include Moser Baer India Limited, Rajalakshmi Audio (Charsur's biggest competitor), and HMV.

The Director of KutcheriBuzz.com, a dance and music website, Vincent De Souza also claimed that there was no notable rise in their sales during the festival season. He added that they did not have any specific agreement with the sabhas but with the retail stores themselves. "We identify a couple of albums and then we keep replenishing their stock from the store depending on the demand that they receive."

KutcheriBuzz.com covers the December music festival and streams a few concerts on their websites, in the words of De Souza, "to give world audiences a taste of the December Music festival season". The site also covers the Natyanjali festival that takes place at the Chidambaram temple every year with a live beam from the temple followed by a documentary compilation of about 50 minutes.