Saregama India and Timbre Media partner to relaunch WorldSpace

WorldSpace was launched a few years ago in India, with the aim of providing genre-based radio content.

Saregama India and Timbre Media have joined hands to form a strategic alliance to relaunch WorldSpace in India. Under the terms of the agreement, Saregama has acquired a 10 per cent equity stake in Timbre Media. The two parties will partner to provide a variety of genre-based radio channels to the Indian market under the brand name 'WorldSpace'.

The two companies plan to use content from Saregama's library of music, as well as from other labels, to provide music lovers 24-hour stations in Indian music, including old Hindi film songs, Hindustani classical, Carnatic, new age Hindi music, ghazals, as well as regional content.

Saregama India and Timbre Media plan to leverage the distribution network of Saregama and the Timbre Media-developed channels, to target the digital domains of mobile, the internet and Direct-to-Home (DTH) television services.

Adarsh Gupta, business head, music, Saregama India, remarks in an official communiqué, "This is a very logical alliance for Saregama as it takes us to the next stage in the value chain with our content. We believe that there is still a very loyal customer base that appreciates the quality that the Timbre team provided previously on WorldSpace."

Apurv Nagpal, managing director, Saregama India, states that this is a significant step forward for Saregama into the digital domain with an attempt to bring back the 'customer delight for evolved radio listening' through this alliance.

Seetal R Iyer, co-founder and head of content, Timbre Media, further adds, "Timbre Media was formed in 2010 and has drawn experience from professionals involved with WorldSpace earlier. We focussed on returning those lost stations of WorldSpace to people. For listeners, this means that their favourite stations such as Farishta, Jhankaar, Gandharv, and Shruti will be back again soon on various platforms."

Timbre Media has secured an exclusive license to use the WorldSpace brand.

For the record, December 2009 had witnessed a winding up of Worldspace Satellite Radio in India due to the financial difficulties faced by the parent brand Worldspace Inc. at that time.