T-Series to launch a music channel

T-Series to launch a music channel

Naturally, it will be on the lines of MTV and Channel V

Aditi Jayakar Kane

Bhushan Kumar, Chairperson and MD of T-Series Ltd. is planning to launch a new channel soon. Although the name of the channel has not yet been decided, Bhushan says, "It will essentially be a music channel where we will showcase our own music as well as that from the rest of the industry. It will be on the lines of MTV and Channel V. It will have a mix of song sequences and some other shows. It is likely to be a joint venture with another channel, but I can't say anything more because talks are still on."

The launch of the channel has been close on the heels of T-Series' fall-out with music channel ETC. Did the tiff trigger the decision to launch the channel? "Not really," says Bhushan. "Earlier many people thought that ETC was part of T-Series because we used to do a large volume of work together. Actually, after the entire episode with ETC, many channels came up to us and said that they would like our support us in future. So, we have yet to decide whether to launch our own channel or to work in collaboration with another one."

Will it require T-series to develop new software? "Well, not really," says Bhushan. "We already have all the software with us, so it's not very difficult for us to launch a channel. We have already singled out some good people to run the show for us and it's only a matter of time before it all takes off."

Incidentally, T-Series has boycotted the music channel ETC Networks Ltd by withdrawing all paid promos of film and non-film music and also the supply of music videos and audio-visuals of film songs.

Bhushan says: "We have been warning ETC for many years against treading on our copyrights. On May 15, we had a meeting with them where they accepted their liability and agreed to pay the damages amounting Rs. 5,73,50,000 to our company against unauthorised usage of our copyrighted material. Following this we agreed to supply them with our promos and songs. However they did not respect this agreement and continued flouting our copyrights. So now we have decided to give them a 15-day period to respond, following which we will take legal action."

However Ashish Kaul, Senior VP, Zee Network counteralleges that it is in fact T-Series that owes them money. He says: "T-Series owes us Rs 7 crore in terms of airtime sales. We have already blacklisted T-Series from all the Zee Network channels and have issued a public statement stating that producers and distributors must approach us personally, not through T-Series for any work hence forth."