Universal Music India to paywall new releases for 72 hours from August

MUMBAI: For a country that streamed a trillion songs in 2025, India has a curiously stingy relationship with paying for any of them. That contradiction is exactly what Universal Music Group is now moving to fix. Starting in August, the label’s new releases from Indian and international artists will sit behind a 72-hour paywall, available first to paying subscribers before ad-supported platforms get a look in. It is a bold wager, and one Universal has already tested elsewhere with encouraging results.

Lucian Grainge, chairman and chief executive of UMG, unveiled the strategy on the company’s second-quarter earnings call on 30 July, framing it not as a squeeze on fans but as an investment in them. “Fans will still have access to the music they love, and artists will see the benefit of improved compensation,” he said, pointing to China’s experience since 2019 as proof that the model works. Grainge’s real target is the superfan, the listener who wants more than a shuffle playlist and is willing to pay for community, physical merchandise and closer access to the artists they follow. That is a shrewd read of where the industry’s growth now lies. Casual streaming has plateaued as a revenue engine everywhere; deeper fandom is where the money is heading next.

Devraj Sanyal, chairman and chief executive of UMG India and South Asia, echoed that logic, describing the move as a way of “strengthening the value of music and building a more sustainable creative community.” His framing is worth taking seriously. India’s success has so far been measured in raw listener numbers, a metric that looks impressive on a slide but does little for songwriters’ bank balances. Sanyal’s bet is that shifting the yardstick from volume to value could finally change that equation, for artists and labels alike.

The numbers explain the urgency. Michael Nash, UMG’s chief digital officer, called out India’s awkward positioning as the world’s 15th largest music market despite its scale and youth, arguing it “should certainly rank higher.” His sharper point was on conversion: only 7 to 10 per cent of India’s streaming users currently pay for the privilege, a startlingly low figure for a market UMG believes is among the biggest growth opportunities anywhere. A windowed release strategy is, in effect, a nudge, not a wall. Fans who want the music immediately have every incentive to upgrade; those happy to wait a few days lose nothing but patience.

Skeptics will point out that Spotify and other platforms have flirted with early access windows before without transforming paid conversion overnight. But Universal’s China experiment gives this move more credibility than most. If a market once seen as similarly resistant to paid streaming responded well to exactly this playbook, India, with its far larger English-speaking, aspirational middle class and an already-booming subscription economy across other sectors, looks like fertile ground to try it again. For an industry that has spent a decade chasing scale, Universal’s move is a rare and welcome bet on depth instead.