Saregama to foray into TV software

Mumbai: Yet another addition to the ever-growing list of television software producers. Saregama Ltd, better known by its old name Gramophone Company of India Ltd, has decided to accept the recommendations made by Mckinsey & Co and venture into television software production with a big bang.

Saregama had appointed Mckinsey & Co to advice it on evolving a business model to help carve out its future growth.

Television software is a growing segment of the entertainment industry, and the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry report had said the size of the segment is likely to increase to Rs 5,100 crore from its present size of Rs 1,400 crore.

Saregama already has a small presence in the segment, with its Tamil serial running on Sun TV for the last 10 weeks. Disclosing this to their shareholders at the 54^th annual general meeting, Saregama vice-chairman Sanjeev Goenka said they would only go ahead with the plan after 15 October, by which time the entire report would be submitted to the company.

Based on the recommendations of the report, Saregama is likely to consider film- and non-film-based areas, the possibility of venturing into FM software and the it plans to foray into animation films.

Saregama always took the advice of management consultancy firms before they ventured into any new area; earlier it had appointed Anderson Consultants to make suggestions on controlling costs. The implementation of its report in fiscal 2000 helped the company to cut on its raw material costs despite an overall increase in market prices.

As a part of its overall growth strategy, Goenka informed shareholders that the company is also considering remaking of albums of old masters as well as repertoire sharing arrangements with some well-known international music companies like Universal and Zomba. The move would help the company in improving its international sales, which at present constitutes just about 3 per cent of its revenues.