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Since September 1, the app has released one original song every week featuring top Bollywood/regional artists.
Gaana Originals is the first-of-its-kind move by any music streaming app to curate original content and provide a platform for renowned artists to distribute non-film music, the avenues for which do not exist.
For Originals, Gaana partnered with 11 singers – Sonu Nigam, Shaan, Ankit Tiwari, Neha Kakkar, Sona Mohpatra, Tony Kakkar, Millind Gaba, Sonu Kakkar, Gurnazar, Sachin Gupta and Soham.
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Out of the 6 songs released so far, ‘Tum hardafa ho’ by Ankit Tiwari and ‘Aaja Meri bike Pe’ by Tony Kakkar have crossed more than 4.5 million streams each, followed by Millind Gaba’s ‘Main teri ho gayi’ with 3.5 million and ‘The Ankahee Project’ by Sona Mohpatra that witnessed 3 million play outs.
The latest songs ‘Camrye Waleya’ by Neha Kakkar with 2 million and ‘Bas Ek Baar’ by Sachin Gupta totted up more than 1 million streams in the last few days.
Also, Ankit Tiwari’s ‘Tum Hardafa Ho’ made it to Mirchi Top 20.
Gaana is part of Times Internet Ltd, a subsidiary of Bennett Coleman & Co. Ltd (BCCL) company, the publisher of this newspaper.
“We have witnessed fantastic response for Gaana Originals. It has surpassed songs of most recent Bollywood releases. Only two Bollywood releases, Badrinath Ki Dulhaniya and Judwaa 2, have managed to get similar or more numbers,” said Prashan Agarwal, COO, Gaana.
According to Agarwal, the purpose of this initiative was to empower artists who can showcase and exercise their freedom and creativity without having to worry about the boundaries defined by limited film releases.
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“Most singers today have song banks, but there are not enough avenues to release them. When it comes to Hindi music, Bollywood is the only platform. If on an average the industry is releasing 300 films per year, it will mean just 1,500 songs, which is miniscule compared to countries like US where they release almost 100,000 songs,” he said.
Industry watchers say Gaana has established itself as a leader in the Indian music streaming space, surpassing established domestic players such as Saavn, Hungama and Wynk, and new entrants like Google Play, Reliance Jio and Apple Music. Amazon Prime is also planning to launch its own music streaming service.
Agarwal said that while the music streaming industry grew by 2X in 2017, Gaana registered a 3X jump in number of users. “Last month, we got 40 million active users, who cumulatively streamed 1.2 billion songs. Also, 85% of this audience is coming via mobile devices, compared to 70% vis-à-vis other industries,” he added.
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As per a FICCI KPMG report, with similar song catalogues and genres available across all service providers, platform loyalty plays a key role in improving monetisation and retain consumers. To differentiate themselves, music streaming services like Gaana.com are increasingly investing in generation of platform exclusive content, non-music content and even selected video catalogue.
“Differentiation is the key here. Originals platform not just helps in more engagement but also customer acquisition.” said Agarwal.
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