wynk studio: Airtel launches Wynk Studio to support independent artists; earmarks Rs 100 crore

The company has earmarked Rs 100 crore to promote local talent and launch 5000 independent artists, said a top executive. At present, it has over 130 artists signed up for the programme.

“During our market research, we found the three biggest challenges that aspiring musicians face – lack of discovery, lack of transparency and lack of monetisation. We wanted to solve all these problems,” Adarsh Nair, CEO,

Digital told ET.

The platform, Wynk Studio, will allow aspiring musicians to pursue their passion and earn income at the same time, he said. “Airtel’s experience in music streaming, ability to achieve scale, and long-standing relationship with over 350 million customers will ensure that all stakeholders in the industry have an equal and a rewarding journey. We are looking to attract talent from across the world and scale the platform to 5000 artists in the next 1 year from over 130 at present,” said Nair.

The Indian music industry is at an inflection point with Indians on an average listening to music for about 21 hours per week, as against a global average of 18 hours. However, monetisation has historically been a challenge, Nair said.

“But things are changing now. Today, the industry stands at Rs 2,000 crore, and is expected to reach Rs 3,000 crore by 2025, which is a 50% jump. We want to be a part of this growth,” he added.

Interestingly, almost 30% of the top performing songs across any music platform in India are today from independent artists and these independent artists.

On how Wynk Studio will help the artists, Nair explained that it will allow users to directly launch their music on the Wynk music app, which has 75 million users already. “The music will be shared with other music platforms too, which will help them get discovered. This will help the artists to achieve record streams in competitive timelines through the support of our strong distribution capabilities. This ensures consistent earnings for artists on every stream enabling them to make their music career,” he said.

The platform will also help artists use Airtel’s deep data science capabilities, to build music that is enjoyed by their followers and help them create commercially viable music.

At present, Wynk Studio has onboarded 130 artists on the platform from India, Singapore and the United States. These include Nishad Patki from Pune, a professor, who left his job to pursue passion for music full time; Mumbai-based Prateek Gandhi (34 million streams), Gagan Baderiya from Bengaluru (17 million streams); and Harsha Prawin from Hyderabad (20 million streams).

Even artists from small towns like Haldwani (Ajay Nagarkoti) and

(D-Shaw) have got over a million streams each.