T-Series has become the first Indian entity on Youtube to get 10 mln (1 cr) followers.
“They’re one of the few YouTube channels globally to reach this level, and to acknowledge it, they’ll be awarded a nifty Diamond Play Button for their trophy case,” said Google, which runs Youtube.
T-Series was India’s number one record brand in the 1990s, but the emergence of the Internet destroyed the market for cassettes, which was T-Series’ mainstay. Though there was a small resurgence during the CD era, that too was quickly overcome by P2P downloads and cornershop MP3 outlets.
However, the company has since then successfully built a platform on Youtube. It was among the earliest to put its music up on the Internet for free consumption via Youtube, while other brands were wary of doing so for fear of impacting any remaining media sales.
“Since T-Series started their YouTube channel in 2011, they’ve embraced the change in the way people listen to music, in part by adapting their content for people across a spectrum of connectivity,” Google said.
T-Series also was close to audience’s demands.
For people who worry about data consumption, they make lyric-and-audio-only videos, or tracks with album art.
For those with high-speed connections, they offered high definition music videos.
“Their focus on multiple formats has helped them spread a wider net across their audiences. T-Series has also built a strong base of loyal fans by staying in conversation with them on social media.”
T-Series has gained more than 7.7 billion views, with more than 400,000 years of watchtime since it went online on Youtube.
Google pays a certain percentage of the ad-revenue that it generates from official channels to the content creator.
Today, said Google, 60% of views for T-Series are from overseas.
T-Series has also used YouTube as a place to spot new talent. Arjun and Zack Knight are two musicians who started on YouTube that T-Series signed and are now established singing stars. In 2014 T-Series held a cover song contest, from which they discovered Indian-Kiwi singer Shirley Setia on YouTube, who went from singing in her bedroom in New Zealand to performing on the stage of YouTube FanFest in Mumbai this year.
The most popular song on T-Series’ channel on Youtube is the remix of Dheere Dheere Se Meri Zindagi from the cult hit Aashiqui from the early 1990s.