Facebook, Saregama strike global deal

There are over 280 million Facebook users in India alone, making it the leading country in terms of Facebook audience size.

No wonder then, Facebook views Indian market with a lot of seriousness and sincerity.

Facebook recently committed $5.5 billion for a deal with Jio Platforms. And last year, Facebook had inked deals with three of India's top music labels --- T-Series, Zee Music Company, and Yash Raj Films. Facebook also rolled out new music products in India, with the aim to enabling users to express themselves through music on its platform and Instagram.

And today, the social media giant announced a global deal with Saregama, one of India’s oldest music labels, to licence its music for video and other social experiences across its platform and Instagram.

This partnership will allow users to choose from a wide variety of music to add to their social experiences such as videos, stories via music stickers and other creative content. People will also be able to add songs to their Facebook Profile.

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Huge catalogue of Indian songs

The partnership comes weeks after Swedish music giant Spotify also signed a deal with Saregama, which has a catalogue of over 100,000 songs across many different genres including film songs, devotional music, ghazals & indipop in more than 25 languages. 

According to a press release from Saregama, people will be able to use classics from legends likes Lata Mangeshkar, Kishore Kumar, Mohammed Rafi, Asha Bhosle, Gulzar, Jagjit Singh, R D Burman, Kalyanji Anandji, Geeta Dutt and Laxmikant Pyarelal, making their experience on the platform more vibrant, personal and engaging.

Commenting on the partnership, Vikram Mehra, Managing Director of Saregama India said “We are pleased with this partnership as now millions of Facebook users will be able to add music from our vast catalogue to stories and videos they create and share.”

Facebook and its musical gambit

Manish Chopra, Director and Head of Partnerships, Facebook India added, “At Facebook, we believe music is an integral part of self-expression and bringing people closer together and creating memories that last. We are very proud to partner with Saregama that will allow people on our platforms, globally, to use their favourite retro Indian music to further enrich their content on our platforms.”

Since last year, Facebook has launched new products that include music stickers on Stories, the ability to add songs to their Facebook Profiles and creative tools such as Lyrics on Instagram and Lip Sync Live.

Slowly but surely, Facebook is preparing to mount a real challenge to YouTube, on which music enjoys huge popularity. 

Facebook by signing deals with music labels is making them its ally. For, music companies have long complained that YouTube doesn’t pay them enough, considering the amount of music consumed on the site, and they also argue YouTube has been too loose with copyright protections. 

It is this market that Facebook is now apparently focused on.

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