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Kohinoor Mandal

Company in talks with cell operators, manufacturers to sell music tracks

Kolkata , July 4

Saregama India Ltd, the entertainment company belonging to the RPG group, has initiated talks with mobile phone manufacturers and operators for selling music tracks.

Saregama, which is popularly known as HMV, is currently in the process of digitising its entire stock of musical tracks at its Dum Dum factory. The process is scheduled to be over within the three to four months.

According to Mr Subroto Chattapadhyay, MD of Saregama India, (who is also the President & CEO of RPG Enterprises' Entertainment Sector), the company has more than three lakh musical tracks and out of it, 1.70 lakh have already been digitised.

`Trustee of heritage'

"HMV is a unique company. We are actually a trustee of Indian musical heritage. We have musical tracks in as many as 23 languages and in every genre of music. They have regional and national relevance," Mr Chattopadhyay told Business Line.

Saregama is talking with leading cell phone operators such as Airtel and Hutch for selling its musical tracks, which could be used as ring tones, ring-back tones, background music and SMS. It is also holding similar discussions with cell phone manufacturers such as Nokia and Motorola. "Here too we would like to sell music for similar purposes but currently we are trying to find out the technology for doing it," he said.

Mr Chattopadhyay conceded that digitising the entire music bank of HMV is an extremely costly affair but he preferred not to disclose the exact investments.

Instead he said once this platform is created the Saregama's earning avenues will increase a lot.

Chennai centre shines

The Chennai-based television content division of Saregama, which is currently producing software for Sun TV, he said, is doing extremely well and has added to the company's topline growth in 2005-06.

Saregama holds the home video distribution rights of five leading Hollywood producers, including Warner Brothers.

In the last fiscal the company has recorded good business from two films King Kong and Harry Potter.

In the film music business, the company had its cash boxes tinkling with hit films such as Emraan Hashmi's Gangstar, Abhishek Bachchan's Bluffmaster, John Abraham-Nana Patekar starrer Taxi No 1.

For the year ended March 31, 2006, Saregama's total income increased to Rs 118.87 crore from Rs 100.87 crore.

Its net profit jumped to Rs 8.87 crore from Rs 5.21 crore.

More Stories on : Outlook | Telecommunications | Music & Dance | Strategy

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