A familiar tune: The return of the WorldSpace team

Shonali Advani

It was Christmas Day in 2009 and jingles were the last thing Indian music enthusiasts heard on World Space Radio. News had come in from the US that World Space Inc. would terminate operations in India on the last day of the year. The news came as a shock to the satellite radio service’s Indian subscriber base of 6 lakh and the industry at large. While the company had filed for bankruptcy in 2008, it was always expected that its buyer would keep the India service on, which accounted for a lion’s share of its market.

Fans aside, its employees were in shock. “We did not know they were closing and all of us were informed on e-mail on Christmas Eve,” recalls M Sebastian, an employee. Responsible for launching the station here in September 2000, Sebastian was flooded with calls from fans pleading to bring WorldSpace back on air. Overwhelmed and pushed by the response, he took a call to resume the music.

[caption id=“attachment_693567” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] The same WorldSpace India team launched Bengaluru-based Timbre Media Pvt Ltd in May 2010/Entrepreneur India[/caption]

New melody

The same WorldSpace India team launched Bengaluru-based Timbre Media in May 2010. If this was a game of poker, this was the team going all in-every employee has a stake in this new company. “The saga of Timbre Media starts with the history of WorldSpace in India,” says 45 year-old Sebastian, now CEO at Timbre Media. He says that the demand for a WorldSpace-like service was always there. “Also, we were on the road,” he quips.

WorldSpace’s success was built around the fact that it was a mostly ad-free service that could relay music to anyone anywhere in the country. On top of that, it catered to multiple tastes-indeed some of its staunchest supporters were fans of Indian classical and regional music who found no love from traditional FM radio stations.

Not surprising then, Timbre’s model is much on the same template of genre-based radio channels like WorldSpace. The startup has created its own set of 24x7 regional language channels distributed over three platforms, under the WorldSpace brand. “We took the license from the current owners because it is the same team and thus easier to communicate to customers,” explains Sebastian.

It currently airs ten channels for mobile networks (Vodafone and Airtel), which are offered to subscribers as a Mobile VAS offering. Airtel direct-to-home (DTH) subscribers also have access to 12 Timbre channels. For netizens, it offers nine channels via mobile apps for Android, iOS and also the Intel App store. “We are platform agnostic and want to reach our target segment via every possible medium,” he says.

Right now, its genres are sorted by regional languages, which includes one each for old Hindi music and devotional music. “They are designed on a magazine format, and capture cultural aspects of that state, but only through radio jockeys. We have no talk shows yet,” mentions Seetal R Iyer, 39, Co-Founder and Head of Content at Timbre. She tells us all audio content is packaged according to the medium-the same channels on VAS, DTH and the apps can have drastically different audio content.

A tune for you

Timbre’s exclusivity goes beyond conventional programming. As part of its second vertical, it offers customized radio services for corporate and retail segments. In August 2011, the IT giant Infosys was looking at launching a forum which was a combination of innovative communication, employee engagement and entertainment. It narrowed options to an internal radio station for communication that is non-intrusive and also fun.

“Timbre Media runs InfyRadio. We spoke with multiple agencies but closed in on them as they have relevant expertise and took a genuine interest in the project,” says Divya Nimesh Bajaj, Senior Associate Lead, HR, Infosys.

For the retail sector, Timbre works with anyone looking for ambience music and delivers packaged music-in-line with the client’s brand ethos and target audience. “The content can be used for promotions, marketing or even as a training tool. Our job is to understand their requirement and then package, produce and deliver it,” says Sebastian, adding that creative control lies with the client, unlike its own channels where it uses its discretion based on past experience in listening preferences.

Hetal Kotak, COO at Colorplus Fashions, says they signed up with Timbre in September 2012 to use music as an ingredient to create a complete brand experience for its in-store customers.

“Timbre has created a customised music list for us which we refresh periodically so regular customers listen to something new every time. The content is engaging and the initiative has helped us create consistency in brand experience across our stores.”

A good mix

Sebastian likens this service of Timbre to a multi-cuisine restaurant, where audio is the raw ingredient. “We package and sell whatever a customer wants,” says Sebastian, who is sure they will not limit themselves to any sector either. Also in the ambit is content for other FM stations (some international) and audio-books as a category for creative content. Timbre Media’s largest partnership in the latter category is with Kerala-based publisher DC Books, started in September 2011. Mango, the children’s publishing arm of DC Books, provides content in the form of stories for children. Timbre finds voice-over artists to read the stories and add relevant music clippings. It has converted 100 books in English so far.

“Timbre has done a good job with the voice-over and music. Price points are under consideration. However, streamlining workflow is an improvement we would like to see,” says Ravi Deecee, CEO, DC Books.

Its revenue model across these verticals could either be revenue share in the case of subscription-based services with mobile operators and DTH, fixed fees (like with Infosys) or a one-time project fee in case of on-demand projects.

Partner play

Describing the company as a media factory creating unique, rich, compelling content but not limited to music or radio, the CEO says that their real scalability will come when they increase product categories, platforms and geographical regions.

In July 2011, Timbre strengthened its brand value by inking a strategic partnership with music company Saregama India (a part of the RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group) which bought a 10 percent stake in the firm for an undisclosed amount.

This agreement gave Timbre access to Saregama’s catalogue of 150,000 tracks across genres. “It made logical sense, with our content, to get into genre-based radio programming,” says Adarsh Gupta, Head of Music, Saregama.

“This business is moving towards the digital side of things. Timbre is the only product that stands across all digital mediums,” he says, pointing to the growing mobile internet penetration in the country.

Sebastian believes a partnership model, rather than a license approach, makes better business sense as various elements forming the value chain have to work together to successfully tap opportunities.

“Otherwise, what we achieve will be substantially lower than what we can in terms of scale,” Sebastian says.

(This article was first published in Entrepreneur India)