JioSaavn is an Indian

online music streaming A music streaming service is a type of streaming media service that focuses primarily on music, and sometimes other forms of digital audio content such as podcasts. These services are usually subscription-based services allowing users to stream ...

service and a digital distributor of

Hindi Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been de ...

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

Malayalam Malayalam (; , ) is a Dravidian language spoken in the Indian state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry (Mahé district) by the Malayali people. It is one of 22 scheduled languages of India. Malayalam was des ...

Bengali Bengali or Bengalee, or Bengalese may refer to: *something of, from, or related to Bengal, a large region in South Asia * Bengalis, an ethnic and linguistic group of the region * Bengali language, the language they speak ** Bengali alphabet, the w ...

Kannada Kannada (; ಕನ್ನಡ, ), originally romanised Canarese, is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by the people of Karnataka in southwestern India, with minorities in all neighbouring states. It has around 47 million native s ...

Tamil Tamil may refer to: * Tamils, an ethnic group native to India and some other parts of Asia **Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka also called ilankai tamils **Tamil Malaysians, Tamil people native to Malaysia * Tamil language, nativ ...

Telugu Telugu may refer to: * Telugu language, a major Dravidian language of India *Telugu people, an ethno-linguistic group of India * Telugu script, used to write the Telugu language ** Telugu (Unicode block), a block of Telugu characters in Unicode S ...

Bhojpuri Bhojpuri (;Bhojpuri entry, Oxford Dictionaries
, Oxford U ...

and other regional

Indian music Owing to India's vastness and diversity, Indian music encompasses numerous genres in multiple varieties and forms which include classical music, folk (Bollywood), rock, and pop. It has a history spanning several millennia and developed ove ...

around the world. Since it was founded in 2007 as Saavn, the company has acquired rights to over 8.0

crore A crore (; abbreviated cr) denotes ten million (10,000,000 or 107 in scientific notation) and is equal to 100 lakh in the Indian numbering system. It is written as 1,00,00,000 with the local 2,2,3 style of digit group separators (one lakh is e ...

(80 million) music tracks in 15 languages. JioSaavn is a

freemium Freemium, a portmanteau of the words "free" and "premium," is a pricing strategy by which a basic product or service is provided free of charge, but money (a premium) is charged for additional features, services, or virtual (online) or physical (o ...

service; basic features are free with advertisements or limitations, while additional features, such as improved streaming quality and music downloads for offline listening, are offered via paid subscriptions. On 23 March 2018, Saavn announced merger with JioMusic in a deal worth more than $1 billion. The merger was completed in December 2018, with Saavn being rebranded JioSaavn., , .

History

Saavn was founded in 2006 as BODVOD Network and initially distributed

Bollywood Hindi cinema, popularly known as Bollywood and formerly as Bombay cinema, refers to the film industry based in Mumbai, engaged in production of motion pictures in Hindi language. The popular term Bollywood, is a portmanteau of "Bombay" (fo ...

content in North America in a B2B offering. Saavn later shifted its core focus to become a music destination for fans of Bollywood and other Indic music in 2009, re-launching its flagship product, Saavn.com, to become a B2C product. As of today, Saavn is one of the largest distributors of Bollywood and other Indian entertainment in the world. On March 23, 2018,

Reliance Industries Ltd Reliance Industries Limited is an Indian multinational conglomerate company, headquartered in Mumbai. It has diverse businesses including energy, petrochemicals, natural gas, retail, telecommunications, mass media, and textiles. Reliance is o ...

acquired a majority stake in Saavn. Reliance executed definitive agreements for combination of Saavn with its digital music service, JioMusic. The combined entity is valued at over US$1 billion and renamed as JioSaavn.

Products and services

JioSaavn's products are JioSaavn Pro, its music service that offers offline listening without advertisements, with improved music quality and its mobile apps, JioSaavn for Android and iOS. Saavn also integrated a social networking feature with its music streaming service in April 2015. Saavn Social allows users to follow the profiles and playlists of their friends as well as celebrities. Users can share any song, album or playlist with their friends and chat about music in real time.

Revenue model

JioSaavn's business model is based on digital advertising services (offers service with advertisements) and a subscription-based business model (JioSaavn Pro, offers ad-free and offline streaming).

Partnerships

Amazon

JioSaavn was one of the first music streaming services in India to be made available on Amazon's voice assistant, Alexa, which shipped nationwide in October 2017.

Shazam

In 2013, Shazam, a media engagement company, entered into an exclusive partnership with Saavn. As a part of this, Saavn's music library was incorporated in Shazam's music database. Saavn aims to provide its users with an enhanced listening experience with Shazam's music engagement tools especially in popular genres like bhangra, devotional,

ghazal The ''ghazal'' ( ar, غَزَل, bn, গজল, Hindi-Urdu: /, fa, غزل, az, qəzəl, tr, gazel, tm, gazal, uz, gʻazal, gu, ગઝલ) is a form of amatory poem or ode, originating in Arabic poetry. A ghazal may be understood as a ...

s, Carnatic, Indipop and regional language music like

Urdu Urdu (;"Urdu"
''

, Punjabi,

Gujarati Gujarati may refer to: * something of, from, or related to Gujarat, a state of India * Gujarati people, the major ethnic group of Gujarat * Gujarati language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by them * Gujarati languages, the Western Indo-Aryan sub ...

Marathi Marathi may refer to: *Marathi people, an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group of Maharashtra, India *Marathi language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Marathi people *Palaiosouda, also known as Marathi, a small island in Greece See also * * ...

, and

Bhojpuri Bhojpuri (;Bhojpuri entry, Oxford Dictionaries
, Oxford U ...

Twitter

Saavn launched its radio model in 2013 and later partnered with Twitter to crowd-source song requests via the custom handle @SaavnRadio.

Apps for iOS, Android and Windows 10

In 2010, Saavn introduced its first mobile app - Saavn Music for Android. This was followed up with Saavn Music for iPhone. Saavn for iOS has received 9,000+ ratings with an average rating of 4.5 Stars. In mid-2011, Saavn added its latest app, Saavn Music for Chrome, to the Chrome Web Store and later on

Microsoft Store Microsoft Store (formerly known as Windows Store) is a digital distribution platform operated by Microsoft. It started as an app store for Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 as the primary means of distributing Universal Windows Platform apps ...

running

Windows 10 Windows 10 is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It is the direct successor to Windows 8.1, which was released nearly two years earlier. It was released to manufacturing on July 15, 2015, and later to retail on J ...

Facebook

Saavn was selected in December, 2011 to be Facebook's first global partner and Indian partner on the Open Graph platform. This integration with Facebook allows users to stream any of Saavn's millions of tracks using their Facebook logins and to listen to music from Facebook. In the first three days of launch, Open Graph doubled the total number of visitors to Saavn.com, and increased the number of visitors from Facebook to Saavn by 15 times. Nearly half of Saavn's user base uses Facebook Connect.

Sony Music

Saavn partnered with

Sony Music Sony Music Entertainment (SME), also known as simply Sony Music, is an American multinational music company. Being owned by the parent conglomerate Sony Group Corporation, it is part of the Sony Music Group, which is owned by Sony Entertainment ...

to acquire Sony's entire database of music catalog in 2012.

Other partners

Saavn has 900+ label partnerships including

Universal Music Universal Music Group N.V. (often abbreviated as UMG and referred to as just Universal Music) is a Netherlands, Dutch–United States, American multinational Music industry, music corporation under Law of the Netherlands, Dutch law. UMG's cor ...

, T-Series, Tips, YRF,

Saregama Saregama India Ltd. (Saregama refers to the first four notes of the Indian musical scale); formerly known as The Gramophone Company Of India Ltd. is India's oldest music label owned by the RP- Sanjiv Goenka Group of companies. The company i ...

, Eros Music and

Warner Music Warner Music Group Corp. ( d.b.a. Warner Music Group, commonly abbreviated as WMG) is an American multinational entertainment and record label conglomerate headquartered in New York City. It is one of the " big three" recording companies and t ...

. Saavn's brand partners include global names like AT&T, Bose, Lays, General Motors, Nokia, Samsung, and Western Union.

Creative collaborator

Saavn teamed up with popular Bollywood actor

Ranbir Kapoor Ranbir Kapoor (; born 28 September 1982) is an Indian actor known for his work in Hindi-language films. He is one of the highest-paid actors of Hindi cinema and has featured in ''Forbes India''s Celebrity 100 list since 2012. Kapoor is the rec ...

in 2014. He joined Saavn to collaborate on consumer marketing ideas and business development. The actor was reportedly interested in working at a more business-oriented level at Saavn. He has expressed his desire to help "guide the brand, influence programming, connect with the next generation of music listeners and ultimately help build the best music product in India and potentially the world." The partnership led to a number of ad campaigns that were launched in India and select international networks and generated more than 7 million combined YouTube views. Ranbir Kapoor is also co-owner / part-owner of Saavn.

Corporate social responsibility

In February 2015, Saavn partnered with philanthropy non-profit

Akshaya Patra Foundation The Akshaya Patra Foundation is a non-profit trust of International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), located in Bangalore, Karnataka, India. The organisation operates the Midday Meal Scheme (a school lunch programme) in India. Mi ...

for the launch of #MusicForMeals. For every hour of music streamed on Saavn, the company helps provide mid-day meals to school-going children through Akshaya Patra's network of schools. Saavn also works with the

Internet and Mobile Association of India Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) is a not-for-profit industry body representing the interests of online and mobile value added services industry. It is registered under The Societies Registration Act, 1860. History The need fo ...

(IAMAI), a not-for-profit industry body that represents the interests of mobile and online value added services in India. In May 2015, Saavn co-founder and president Vinodh Bhat was named as vice-chairman of IAMAI.

Switch to subscription-only service

Beginning November 2016, Saavn started moving to a paid-only model (except

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

), initially offering listening for free for 30 days and after that a monthly subscription fee of $4.99.

Saavn original programs

Saavn Artist in Residence

In 2016, Saavn launched its Artist In Residence (AiR) program with indie artist Nucleya.

Saavn Originals

Saavn later expanded its content offering into Saavn Original Programming, a slate of original, non-music audio programs that range from Bollywood to comedy and storytelling to cricket. Saavn's audio shows include ''No Filter Neha'', ''Qisson ka Kona with Neelesh Misra'', ''Trial by Error: The Aarushi Files'', and ''Kahaani Express''.

Saavn Verified Artists

Saavn verifies their authentic artists by providing a verification badge on their profiles.

Artist Originals

In early 2017, JioSaavn introduced Artist Originals (AO), an original music program releasing and marketing tracks and albums by South Asian artists, songwriters and producers from around the world. JioSaavn was the first streaming app to offer original audio programming in India. Indian hip-hop star

Naezy Naved Shaikh (born 10 August 1993), better known by his stage name Naezy, is an Indian rapper from Mumbai, Maharashtra, who first broke into mainstream rap with the song ''"Mere Gully Mein"'' featuring fellow rapper DIVINE. A fictional version o ...

, Toronto-based DJ Sickick, singer-songwriter

Prateek Kuhad Prateek Kuhad is an Indian singer-songwriter and musician who makes independent music in Hindi and English. He is best known for his track "cold/mess". Early life and career Kuhad was born in Jaipur, Rajasthan in a Hindu Jat family and has tw ...

, U.K.-based independent artists

Zack Knight Zack Knight (born 22 November 1991) is a British Pakistanis, British-Pakistani singer-songwriter. Formerly known by the stage name, Zeekay (before 2011), Knight is well-known for hit songs including Bom Diggy, Galtiyan, Nakhre and Enemy, the fo ...

and Jasmin Walia, electronic artist Sandunes, Canadian artist The PropheC, contemporary classical duo Shadow and Light and UK musician Raxstar have also launched songs under the Artist Originals program. Spotted JioSaavn appoints new CEO Sahas Malhotra, ex-Amazon Music India. Warner Music India and JioSaavn announced the launch of ‘Spotted’- an artist discovery program. The program is designed to bring together the ecosystem that enables artists to reach their optimum potential. JioSaavn will collaborate with Warner Music India, to be able to release audio and video content. This partnership will create a stimulating environment for creators.

References

External links

* {{Reliance Industries Limited Android (operating system) software Online music stores of India IOS software Jukebox-style media players Online music and lyrics databases Online music database clients Music streaming services Hindi film songs 2018 mergers and acquisitions Reliance Industries subsidiaries Jio Indian companies established in 2007