HYDERABAD: This week, Spotify announced its concentrated effort to grow the Telugu audio streaming industry through both, podcasts and music. With Telugu being one of the more popular languages on Spotify, we speak to Dhruvank Vaidya, head of podcasts and Rahul Balyan, head of Music, India, Spotify, who are in town to talk about exclusive Telugu podcasts, how film music rules the hearts of Telugu listeners, their upcoming collaborations, etc.
For the uninitiated Telugus, Spotify India has four exclusives so far in the Telugu market. “Of these, Garikapati Gyananidhi is among the top most consumed on the platform, and Telugu Dost Podcast – Idhi Oka Gamer’s Life debuted at #3 on the podcast charts. Apart from these, we have two other exclusive podcasts - Telugu Kathalu by Pavani and Anaganagga – both of which have gained traction on the platform,” Dhruvank informs.
Rahul adds that the Telugu music market is dominated by film music, but steadily, they are seeing a music community beyond Tollywood, emerge. “The pandemic saw a decline in films being produced and thereby a decline in film-based music too. This encouraged playback singers to try their hand at non-film music as well, and some – such as Vijai Bulganin’s Yemaiundacho and Mohana Bhogaraju’s Bullet Bandi – were hits,” he mentions.
Hyderabad, especially, has a beautiful mix of people - Telugu, Dakhni, and an urbane crowd. Dhruvank says that Spotify has and is working to create local and culturally relevant content for Telugu user. “We have just announced our podcasts with Harsha Chemudu, and a thriller podcast, Detective Rudra, with popular anchor Ravi playing the lead. In the coming months, we will also be launching six more local language podcasts. Podcast listeners are exploring all content genres, and there is an audience looking for more content. We are building a robust ecosystem for audio creators in India to cater to this demand, and are doing so from the ground up by training and educating aspiring podcasters. Today, anyone can make a podcast – all one needs is an idea, a phone and Anchor, a Spotify-owned platform where one can create and distribute their podcast, all for free.”
The app has now partnered with revered and legendary Telugu cinema stars like Nagarjuna Akkineni, and recently with Chiranjeevi on the film partnership campaign for GodFather, Rahul tells CE. The duo lists Anchor Audio Superstar as their USP the platform banks on. “It was our first effort to develop the podcast creator community in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. The response has been overwhelming, with participation from across the states. Over 2000 aspiring creators applied for the program, and over 250 of these creators created their first podcast using Anchor.
These podcasters are creating shows based on storytelling, interviews, knowledge and learning, self-help, and motivation, among other topics,” Dhruvank shares as Rahul adds that being an artist-first platform, they we want to enable artists to produce more music for themselves and the entire ecosystem. “Hyderabad has a talent pool that is untapped in large parts. To address this, we plan to do masterclasses down the road, where the focus would be on increasing awareness of Spotify and the many tools it offers to artists that can help take them and their music to more listeners,” says he.
Rahul concludes saying that they cannot wait to collaborate with several artists who cut across both film and non-film music, including artists such as Hemachandra and Damini Bhatla, who have interesting work lined up already.