Saregama buys 10 pc stake in Timbre Media

Both the companies are already in talks with leading mobile phone service providers as well as DTH TV service providers to launch the service. Various mobile phone service providers as well as DTH TV service providers are expected to launch their own respective packages separately, with their own pricing in few months.

Timbre Media was formed in 2010 and has drawn experience from professionals involved with Worldspace Satellite Radio service earlier, which had a listenership of 1.50 lakh satellite radio sets.

"This time, we are targeting the Indian diaspora all over the world across the Middle East, Far East and Africa. We are focused on returning those lost stations of Worldspace Radio to the people.

For our listeners, this means that their favourite Worldspace stations like Farishta, Jhankaar, Gandharv, and Shruti, to name a few, will be back again soon on various platforms," Timbre Media Pvt Ltd's Co-founder and Head Of Content Seetal R Iyer said.

The two companies also plan to use content from Saregama's library as well as other popular labels, to provide 24-hour stations of Indian music, ranging from old Hindi films, Hindustani classical, Carnatic classical, new Hindi music, ghazals and music in all major Indian languages, through DTH TV as well as mobile phones.

"We believe that there is still a very loyal customer base that appreciates the quality that the Timbre team provided previously on Worldspace Satellite Radio. Through this alliance, we will endeavour to bring the same quality and serve this product in all possible digital formats, including mobile phones, DTH TV and the Internet.

Depending on the success of these new platform independent programming, we will even be open to increasing our stake in Timbre Media Pvt Ltd," Saregama India Ltd's Business Head (Music) Adarsh Gupta said.

Saregama officials also said that they plan to put in place a subscription-based model in place through mobile phone service providers and DTH TV channels, which is expected to make the programming cheaper for consumers, since there will be no need to invest in satellite radio sets.

"Our customers are loyal to the programming and not to any platform. So this time, our programming will be available across platforms and there won't be any need to purchase a radio. A mobile phone customer can subscribe to it through his service provider and a television viewer can subscribe for it through his DTH service provider.

In that sense, our programming service will be platform independent," Timbre Media Pvt Ltd's Co-founder & CEO M Sebastian said.