The initiative is being rolled out in India first and comes after Meta-owned Instagram launched Reels first in India and then scaled it up globally. It will include music from 200 artists covering the length and breadth of the country.
“India watches music,” said Paras Sharma, director (content & community partnerships) at Facebook India, Meta’s local unit. “There’s a very strong visual element of how Indians consume music. Our music entry point is through a visual element. That’s the core,” he told ET.
So far, the platform has launched around a dozen such music videos and Sharma said “hundreds more” would come out in the next few weeks.
“We are seeing very encouraging early signs,” Sharma said. “If I were to look at it from a consumption point of view, artists like Himanshi Khurana and Prince Narula’s one minute music videos recently launched and have got somewhere close to 9 million plays and 1.5 million plays already.”
The ‘1 Minute Music’ will be available for people to use within the Reels audio gallery and include established as well as emerging artists. Hindi artists like Dhvani Bhanushali, Neeti Mohan and Shaan, Punjabi artists including Jassie Gill, Himashi Khurana and Gurnaam Bhullar and Tamil artists Aniruth, Sivaangi and GV Prakaash Kumar among others will debut on the new format.
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When asked about whether plans were afoot to launch this music property in other countries, Sharma said this was not on the cards as of now. “It doesn’t mean that there are no plans to launch it anywhere else. It could be (launched in other countries) … but as of right now, this is where we’re focusing on making it a success.”
