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Saregama India

Type	Public
Industry	Retail
Founded	13 August 1946 (The Gramophone Company), 3 November 2000 (Saregama)
Headquarters	Kolkata, India
Area served	Global
Key people	Vikram Mehra (MD)
Parent	RPG Group
Website	http://www.saregama.com/

Saregama India Ltd. (Saregama refers to the first four notes of the Indian musical scale) is India’s
oldest music label owned by RPSanjiv Goenka Group of companies.^[1][2] The company is listed on the NSE and BSE with its head office located in Kolkata and other offices in Mumbai, Delhi and Chennai. Apart from music, Saregama also produces films under the brand name Yoodlee Films and multi-language Television content.^[3]

Saregama owns music repertoire across Film music, Carnatic, Hindustani classical, Devotional etc. inall prominent Indian languages. The first song recorded in India by Gauhar Jaan in 1902 and the first film made in Bollywood ‘Alaam Ara' in 1931 were under the music label. Some of the prominent Indian artists who have produced their music with Saregama are Lata Mangeshkar, MSSubbalakshmi, Shamshad Begum, Asha Bhosle, Mohd. Rafi, Kishore Kumar, Mukesh, Jagjit Singh, Pt.Bhimsen Joshi, Pt. Jasraj, Chamkila, Gurdas Mann etc.

History

EMI

In 1901, the company began operations by recording the first song in India, as the first overseas branch of Electrical & Musical Industries Limited, EMI London.^[4] It was incorporated in Calcutta (now Kolkata) as The Gramaphone and Typewriter Ltd. The following year, Gramophone inventor Emile Berliner's assistant Fred Ginsberg came to India "on a mission to capture [its] music". Gauhar Jaan became the first Indian artist to be recorded there, on 5 January 1902. In 1907, a record factory was started in Dum Dum in Calcutta, the first outside the UK.^[5]

On 13 August 1946, it was incorporated as a Private Limited company with the name of ‘The Gramophone Co. (India) Limited'. It was converted into a public company on 28 October 1968 and consequently the name of the company was changed to ‘The Gramophone Company of India Limited'.^[6]RPG Group took over the company in 1985 from EMI when the company’s financial health was poor. The name of the company was then changed from The Gramophone Company of India Limited to its current name Saregama India Limited on 3 November 2000. In 2005, the remaining EMI stake was sold off to the parent company.

Saregama Carvaan, a multipurpose portable music player launched in May 2017.

HMV

For the first 100 years, the company retailed its products (vinyls, cassettes, CDs) under the brand name HMV^[7] which was synonymous with film music in India. From 2000 onwards, it started retailing its products under the brand name, Saregama.

Dum Dum Recording Studio

Saregama’s recording studio, called Dum Dum studio, was built in 1928 in Calcutta.^[8] It is one of the oldest studios in Southeast Asia. Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore had recorded his songs and poems in his own voice at this studio. Rebel poet Kazi Nazrul Islam's voice was also recorded here.The Dum Dum Recording studio was also a house to manufacturing and production of Gramophone Records and thereafter Music Cassettes. With advent of digital formats, the physical formats progressively went out of consumer patronage and consequently, these manufacturing facilities
were shut down.

Saregama Carvaan

Saregama Carvaan is a portable digital audio player with in-built stereo speakers and pre-loaded with 5000 Hindi songs which are categorised based on singers, lyricists, music composers, moods etc.^[9] The device works on a rechargeable battery that lasts up to 5 hours^[10] and also supports FM radio and USB drive for streaming songs via Bluetooth.

The pre-loaded music ranges from Kishore Kumar classics, to R.D Burman’s pulsating hits, to timeless love songs or to soulful Sufi tracks – all in their original versions. Carvaan’s music collection also includes the entire Ameen Sayani’s Geetmala countdown collection spanning 50 years.

Saregama Music Cards

Saregama Music Cards are USB memory sticks which comes pre-loaded with 200 HD-quality songs of various genres eg. Legends, Romance, Lata Mangeshkar, Kishore Kumar, RD Burman, Illayairaja etc.^[11]

Saregama Classical App

Saregama Classical, an Indian classical music based streaming app^[12] with music of artistes in three major subgenres of Indian Classical music, i.e. Hindustani, Carnatic and Fusion. Works of legends like M S Subbulakshmi, Pt. Jasraj, Pt Bhimsen Joshi, Pt. Ravi Shankar, Usd. Bade Gulam Ali Khan, Karaikudi Mani, N. Ramani, Lalgudi Jayaraman are available as part of the app.

Saregama Shakti App

Saregama Shakti, an Indian devotional music based streaming app which offers Hindu devotional music from renowned artistes like Lata Mangeshkar,^[13] Anup Jalota, Suresh Wadkar, Jagjit Singh, Asha Bhosle etc. The app also offers audio recitals of granths like Tulsi Ramayana, Geeta Govinda, Sundar
Kand, Satyanarayan Katha, Sai Satcharitra Granth and Krishna Charit Manas etc. The entire content catalogue of Art of Living is also available on the app.

Yoodlee Films

Yoodlee films is the film division of Saregama India Ltd. through which it plans to produce 100 films by 2022.^[14] Besides traditional script sourcing by the studio, the company also uses Crowdingit platform, which crowdsources scripts for this project.^[15]

Television Content

Saregama produces content for TV channels in Tamil, Hindi, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi and Bengali. The company has created many serials and shows.^[16]

References

External links

• Official Website