NEW YORK (The Orchard/ www.theorchard.com/ www.amc-pr.com) - The Orchard, the world's leading supplier and marketer of independent music, announced today a worldwide marketing and distribution partnership with Saregama
India Ltd, India's oldest and leading music company and part of RPG Group of Companies, one of India's leading business houses.
Saregama, founded in 1901, boasts a catalog of more than 300,000 songs, spanning a wide range of Indian music, including classic and contemporary Bollywood music, Hindustani and Carnatic classical, bhangra, ghazal and devotional, along with a myriad of regional-language songs from India's diverse cultural mix. Classical artists include sitar maestro Ravi Shankar and tabla virtuoso Zakir Hussain while ghazals and qawalis feature the legendary Jagjit Singh and famed and influential vocalist Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. Other notable composers and artists include A.R. Rahman, R.D. Burman, Lata Mangeshkar, Asha Bhosle, Kishore Kumar and Pandit Shiv Kumar Sharma, among others.
Saregama's catalogue, which is considered India's equivalent to the Smithsonian's music collection, has never been available for download to western markets. The catalog's potential audience includes millions of South Asian nationals living in the United States and Europe, as well as westerners whose interest in Indian-tinged crossovers has swelled in the wake of Shania Twain's multi-platinum album "Up!", Jay-Z & Punjabi MC's 2003 club hit "Beware of the Boys," the popular Paris-based "Buddha Bar" DJ CD series, A.R. Rahman's Broadway hit Bombay Dreams, and hit films like "Monsoon Wedding" and "Bend It Like Beckham." The Orchard will use its leading digital music service partners to tap into and help expand this growing market.
The Orchard will initially make 25,000 tracks available for sale through its digital music partners. Based upon sales performance, The Orchard will make at least 25,000 new tracks available each quarter, through the end of 2006.
iTunes, the world's number one online music service, will be working closely with The Orchard in implementing an innovative merchandising program, packaging new and specially created digital-only Saregama compilations that feature content never before on sale in western markets. iTunes has featured these compilations prominently, and later this month, is adding Bollywood and Indian classical "bricks" to their World Music page which lead to Saregama rooms. Plans call for the program to expand, with the specifics driven by consumer interest.
"We are excited that Orchard has so aggressively gone into the Indian and Bollywood music market," said Eddy Cue, Apple's vice president of Applications. "There is clearly a large interest in this music in both the U.S. and Europe and we are happy to make it available to music lovers via the iTunes Music Store."
The Orchard will also make Saregama's catalog available to the more than 80 digital music services it supplies. In addition to iTunes (in the US, UK and Europe), these services include MSN Music, Musicmatch, MusicNet (US and Europe), Napster (US and UK), eMusic (US), Mean Fiddler (UK), HMV (Australia), Pure Tracks (Canada), and mobile provider Zingy, among others.
"The future of the music industry lies in the digital space, and Saregama has been the first Indian music company to act in step with technological advancement," said Dilip R. Mehta, managing director of Saregama.
"The Orchard is the ideal partner for us to take the musical heritage of India and make it available to audiences worldwide for the first time in the 100-year history of our company," said Mr. Mehta, who is also chief executive and president of the RPG group's Entertainment Sector. "The Orchard is foremost a marketing and merchandising company, with a firm grasp on how to create new categories of music as the platform shift from CDs to digital sales commences.
We are confident that together, we can create a new market for Indian music, reaching Indians across the western world, and exposing mainstream music fans to the incredible diversity and virtuosity of Indian music."
"The opportunity to represent one of the most valuable music libraries in the world is an honor and a privilege for The Orchard," said Greg Scholl, chief executive of The Orchard. "Working with the Saregama team, through our close programming partnerships with the leading digital music services worldwide, we have high hopes for what this program will mean for music fans. We are particularly excited about the programs on iTunes - they are the market leaders, and we're confident that through our strong relationship, we can work together to sell this great music in the west."
Additionally, The Orchard and Saregama will aggressively service the largenumber of ethnic Indian press outlets in the US and Europe, reaching out directly to the Indian community to announce the availability of this vast catalog. In addition to the Indian print media, this includes features in larger Indian publications, and features on Indian TV channels beaming into the US and European markets.
