Rpg Music To Get 2m From Saregama For Audio Rights

RPG Music International, the Gramophone Company of India Ltd's (GCIL)

subsidiary for music export, will receive a fee of two million pounds

for transferring the rights to manufacture and market Indian music in

the UK, US, Canada, South Africa and the Caribbean Islands for a period

of 20 years to Saregama Plc, RPG Music's wholly-owned subsidiary. GCIL

has also made a strategic investment in Meltrack India Pvt Ltd, the

largest suppliers of audio tapes to it.

RPG Music had recently divested 24.45 per cent of its stake in Saregama

in the overseas market, fetching 2.45 million pounds. Saregama's shares

are now trading in London's Ofex exchange. The payment for the music

rights would be made in three tranches and a substantial part of the

payment would go to GCIL, which is the ultimate owner of the music

catalogue.

In addition, RPG Music would continue to receive royalty at agreed

rates, based on the sales clocked by its subsidiary Saregama.

Both GCIL and RPG Music are looking ahead with optimism, based on some

key assumptions. First, there is a major line-up of new Hindi film music

which the companies are banking upon. Besides, the regional film music

segment in Tamil and Telugu has a fairly sizeable market for this in

North America and the Far east.

With the opening up of a logistic centre in San Jose to stock and

service the entire range of the parent company's products, a hitherto

unexplored segment of the market, is also expected to boost the fortunes

of RPG Music abroad.

These apart, an increased number of digital video disc products in the

North American market and the creation of a distribution channel in

Malaysia and Singapore for old Hindi and Tamil film songs are also being

seen as good signs for the RPG music business.

In addition to all this, RPG Music's e-commerce site is also being

beefed up. Over 2,000 compact disc titles are now available on sale

through the Net and the company feels the quantum of music e-commerce is

set to grow in a major way in the coming days.

On the GCIL front, a major modernisation-cum-expansion plan was

undertaken at the company's Dum Dum factory. The installed capacity of

pre-recorded cassettes has gone up from 490 lakh the previous year to

550 lakh per year now.