MUMBAI: After a presence of over nine years in the music space, Times Music has now turned towards commercial film music with the launch of a new label called Junglee Music. The audio of Bollywood and south Indian music will be housed under this new label.
Feroz Nadiadwalla’s Welcome starring Akshay Kumar, Katrina Kaif, Nana Patekar, Anil Kapoor, Feroz Khan, Paresh Rawal and Mallika Sherawat is the first movie under this label. The audio cassettes and CDs of the movie will be launched across music stores by this weekend. What’s more, Times Music will also be launching its official website in a few days.
“It was a policy decision to venture into mainstream commercial music. Also since digital format forms a major revenue stream, we will be eyeing popular music, which tends to be used as ringtones by consumers. This is also the reason why we started with Welcome music,” says Times Music COO Adarsh Gupta.
However, Internet downloads of music is not being looked into as a potential revenue generating stream for the immediate future. “Internet downloads do not generate legitimate revenues, there is no model like iTunes in India,” reasons Gupta.
When queried about plans to venture into the home video market Gupta says, “We are essentially an audio label, but if we get good opportunity for home video we will go for it.”
Speaking about the unique brand name ‘Junglee’ for the new label, Gupta says, “Times Music had a very serious image, hence we wanted to create a label, which the youth would identify with. The name, Junglee, evokes curiosity instantly and hence registers with the people. So this prevents us from spending crores of rupees on a marketing campaign to create awareness of the brand name.”
The Time Music label, which currently sells pop and spiritual, will continue to do so.
