| Where most people see a racetrack in central Mumbai or an amusement park in Hyderabad, Ashish Hemrajani sees a concert venue fit for rock stars. Hemrajani is the founder and chief executive officer of BookMyShow, the largest ticketing platform and concert promoter in India. Over the past few years, the company has helped turn India into one of the world’s buzziest new markets for music performances. In 2023, sales from live events eclipsed $1 billion for the first time and are projected to keep growing almost 20% annually, according to Ernst & Young. In January, Coldplay set the record for the largest stadium show this century when the rock band performed in front of 111,000 people in Ahmedabad. Days later, Ed Sheeran started a six-night run in Pune, his fourth trip to the country. Guns N’ Roses performed in front of 35,000 people at a racetrack in Mumbai on May 17 while Travis Scott will venture to Mumbai in October. BookMyShow is the promoter and ticketing service for them all. Until a few years ago, the company made almost all of its money selling movie tickets over the internet. India didn’t host many big live concerts because suitable venues were scarce, there weren’t enough fans able to pay top dollar for marquee performances and the region’s weather limited touring to less than half the year. But recently an emerging middle class in the music-crazy country has started packing venues for some of the most popular bands on the planet. “The market has really caught fire,” said Arthur Fogel, the head of global touring at Live Nation Entertainment Inc., which partnered with BookMyShow to bring the Lollapalooza music festival to Mumbai. Fogel credited BookMyShow with building the infrastructure and a team to develop the market. “Ashish is charismatic and good at what he does,” Fogel said. A consummate, energetic salesman, Hemrajani founded Big Tree Entertainment Pvt, the company that owns BookMyShow, in 1999 following a moment of inspiration on a backpacking trip through South Africa. One day, on a drive from Johannesburg to Cape Town, he heard a radio commercial advertising the opportunity to buy rugby tickets online — and had a career revelation. Hemrajani decided to quit his job at the advertising company J. Walter Thompson and start India’s first online ticket seller. It wasn’t easy. Very few Indians had access to the internet. So while the company listed events online, Hemrajani often had to send people on bikes to deliver tickets and collect payments. The company primarily attracted new customers by selling tickets to movies, the most popular form of entertainment in India. As the dotcom boom took hold, Chase Capital Partners and News Corp. invested in Big Tree, betting that over time more ticket sales would move online. When the tech bubble burst, Hemrajani had to cut his staff from 150 people to six. “We were wiped out,” he recalled during an interview at his office in Mumbai, which is adorned with concert posters, basketball jerseys and other memorabilia from events he’s promoted.  Ashish Hemrajani Photographer: Courtesy of BookMyShow Rather than give up, Hemrajani convinced his parents to take out a mortgage on their home and used the money to buy back his company in 2002. BookMyShow stopped selling tickets and focused instead on providing its technology to other businesses, specifically helping to digitize movie tickets. In 2007, Network 18, a media giant now controlled by Indian conglomerate Reliance Industries Ltd., acquired a majority stake in Big Tree. Buoyed by fresh capital, Hemrajani decided to focus again on selling tickets, allowing customers to complete purchases over the phone or by using the internet. As more Indians came online, the business took off, and Hemrajani raised hundreds of millions of dollars from investors, including Elevation Capital, Accel Partners, Stripes Group and TPG Growth. When TPG invested in Big Tree in 2018, it valued the company at about $850 million. At the time, movie tickets still accounted for the majority of the company’s business. “It’s the cheapest indoor entertainment that you can get in a country that is an assault on your senses,” Hemrajani said. “It’s either hot, or it’s raining or there’s honking. This is indoors, there’s no noise and it’s comfortable and it’s cheap.” Until a couple of years ago, few famous musicians considered performing in India. The primary challenge was infrastructure, said Adam Wilkes, a senior executive with concert giant AEG Presents. The country lacked venues, qualified vendors, technology and safety requirements. The few music sites that did exist lacked clean toilets and enough places to enter and exit. The average citizen was too poor to afford most concerts. As the country’s biggest ticket seller, Hemrajani was well aware of all the problems. But he saw an opportunity to professionalize the business. India was changing before his eyes. Reliance’s Jio Platforms was connecting hundreds of millions of people to the internet by offering mobile broadband at low prices. The federal government was starting to build more infrastructure like tunnels and roads. And the economy was booming, creating a middle class of tens of millions of people who could afford tickets. Even so, because India has so few venues devoted to live music, Hemrajani was forced to improvise. Cricket grounds held the most obvious potential. But stadiums were initially reluctant to host shows because they worried that the fans would damage the fields, undercutting their primary business. Eventually, Hemrajani convinced Mumbai’s DY Patil Stadium to host Justin Bieber in 2017. The concert was a success, and two years later, he brought U2 to the same venue. In the meantime, when there were no cricket stadiums available, Hemrajani turned to wedding venues, empty fields and amusements parks. Since the sites weren’t constructed for live music, each show required a custom-built set. In 2023, Live Nation partnered with Hemrajani to bring Lollapalooza to Mumbai. The festival, which is hosted in Chicago every year, had already expanded to cities, including Sao Paulo, Buenos Aires and Berlin. The Mumbai edition, the first stop in Asia, now takes place at a horse track in the middle of the city and has drawn Imagine Dragons and Green Day as headliners. These days, BookMyShow promotes more than 500 concerts a year — a mix of local artists, DJs and global pop stars. Each month, it sells almost 25 million tickets. Movie admissions still account for the majority of sales, but the company also provides tickets to more than 30,000 other events each year. Infrastructure remains a challenge. In particular, there aren’t any indoor arenas suitable for major acts. That makes it impossible to stage concerts during the sweltering summer or monsoon season and limits performances to a stretch from November to March. Also, there aren’t appropriately sized clubs to host smaller acts and bands that aren’t part of a larger tour. “Not every act can play a cricket ground,” Fogel said. Even so, many of the major players in live music now see India as a growing opportunity. AEG and Live Nation are considering building venues in the country, while food delivery companies Zomato Ltd. and Swiggy Ltd. have started selling concert tickets. For now, as the biggest local player, BookMyShow has the edge. Hemrajani said the company, which is profitable, will look to raise about $100 million to build new venues. He is working with regional authorities in Mumbai to develop India’s first arena devoted to live music. It will host 18,000 to 21,000 people. Hemrajani said that for the first time in his life, he believes India is finally living up to its potential. The best of Screentime (and other stuff) | CoComelon moves from Disney to Netflix | Disney has acquired the exclusive streaming rights to CoComelon, as one of the most popular kids’ programs in the world shifts over from rival Netflix. Starting in 2027, Disney+ will have all past seasons of CoComelon, a compilation of nursery rhymes for toddlers, as well as several seasons of Little Angel and two seasons of JJ’s Animal Time. All three shows are produced by Moonbug Entertainment, part of a media startup led by two former senior Disney executives. Kids’ programming is vital for streaming services as they focus on keeping customers engaged for as long as possible. The longer that subscribers stay with a service, the less likely they are to cancel and the more valuable they are to advertisers. Kids’ programming drives a lot of engagement. It accounts for about 15% of all viewing on Netflix, the company said last week. The popularity of CoComleon on Netflix has waned over the last year, and the streaming service seems to be betting that it already got the most out of the property. It’s getting huge viewership from another YouTube phenomenon, Ms. Rachel. Yet Disney is more than happy to take it over. CoComelon remains one of the most popular programs on both YouTube and Netflix. It also joins an already strong lineup of kids programming on Disney+, which is home to most-watched preschool show on streaming, Bluey, as well as classic Disney films and TV shows. You can read more about the deal here. YouTube takes from DisneyYouTube has hired Justin Connolly, a top executive at Disney, to serve as its ambassador and dealmaker with legacy media companies and sports leagues. Connolly is joining YouTube in a new position putting him in charge of negotiating contracts for the TV networks on YouTube TV, as well as the deals for live sports. Connolly was a star at Disney, where he was once in the running to lead ESPN, and is leaving at a sensitive moment. The company is about launch its ESPN streaming service, and Connolly’s team is in charge of negotiating deals for the service with major providers like Roku (and YouTube). Disney also needs to negotiate a new deal for its networks with YouTube. Now Connolly will be on the other side of those talks. Disney is suing, claiming breach of contract. These types of lawsuits between massive companies are pretty rare. Fox sued Netflix for poaching employees nine years ago. YouTube extends its leadYouTube accounted for 12.4% of TV viewing an April — a jump of nearly 3% from a year ago. YouTube accounted for about half of all the growth in streaming over that period — more than Netflix, Disney, Amazon, Paramount+ and Max combined. Max tops the chartsMax eclipsed Paramount+ as the fastest-growing streaming service in the US in April. That’s the first time Max has held that crown in at least a year (and maybe ever?). We have less TV to watchThe number of original streaming series dropped by more than 25% last year compared with 2022, according to research firm digital i. The firm measured four services — Netflix, Disney+, Max and Prime Video. WNBA ratings jump, NBA ratings less soThe WNBA posted record ratings for its opening weekend, thanks in large part to a game featuring Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese. Viewership for the NBA playoffs increased 3% from a year ago through the first two rounds, but that may not hold. The most-watched game of the playoffs so far was a Round 1 matchup between the Minnesota Timberwolves and the Los Angeles Lakers. The Lakers are long gone, and it’s starting to look like the finals will pit the Indiana Pacers against the Oklahoma City Thunder. Deals, deals, dealsIt took me a couple years, but I finally understand why people love Andor. I saw Kendrick Lamar and SZA in Los Angeles Friday night. Lamar is a magnetic performer. This is my fifth time seeing him live. SZA is a great artist but a work in progress as a live show. Finally, if you have any tips, message me at lshaw31@bloomberg.net or on Signal at lucas_shaw.63. If you don’t already receive this newsletter, please fix that here. And if you want to attend Screentime 2025, apply here. | 
