Rs 20,800 crore. That was the estimated size of India’s live events market in 2024. By 2034, the market is projected to cross $14 billion, growing at nearly 18 per cent annually, driven by rising disposable incomes, expansion into Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities, and sustained demand for music, sports and cultural experiences. It is against this backdrop of explosive growth that news broadcasters are stepping into the live concerts business.
Over the past year, television news brands have begun experimenting with live entertainment as a diversification strategy. India Today Group’s Millionaire Tour with Yo Yo Honey Singh and ABP’s Sunidhi Chauhan tour titled I Am Home signal an attempt to extend news brands beyond the television screen and into consumer-facing experiences.
For broadcasters facing pressure on advertising revenues and fragmented digital monetisation, live events offer a chance to build brand salience, audience intimacy and alternative revenue streams, say industry watchers.
However, some insiders warn that scale does not automatically translate into sustainability. As Ashish Sehgal, Times TV Network & CGO of Times Media & Entertainment puts it, “Concerts and experiential properties are exciting, but they are also very tricky.” Unlike other experiential IPs, he notes, concerts remain artist-led businesses where “the artists earn primarily through performance”, leaving organisers dependent on ticket sales for viability.
What does the economics say
“From a pure P&L standpoint, the concert business is structurally broken right now,” says a senior industry executive closely involved in live event economics. “Even if you get an amazing deal with a top artist like A R Rahman, you are still paying about Rs 3 to 3.5 crore as the artist fee, and production itself is another Rs 3 to 4 crore. You are already looking at a Rs 6 to 7 crore cost base.”
Ticketing alone rarely closes that gap. A strong show selling 10,000 to 11,000 tickets at an average price of Rs 3,000 brings in roughly Rs 3 crore. That imbalance is precisely why, as Sehgal points out, “unless ticketing meaningfully supports the overall revenue, the model does not sustain”.
The gap is typically expected to be bridged by sponsorship, but here too, limitations are stark. “Sponsorship cannot be the foundation. It has to be over and above, the pure cream,” Sehgal says, underlining why reliance on brand partnerships alone rarely works for concerts.
This structural constraint explains why several news networks have either stayed away from concerts or entered only selectively. Entertainment channels can monetise concerts through telecasts, advertising inventory and music rights. News channels cannot, experts noted. Without broadcast reach, organisers depend almost entirely on ticketing and on-ground sponsorship, both of which have hard ceilings.
At the upper end of the artist spectrum, the risk escalates further. “If an artist like Honey Singh is signing for Rs 6 crore per concert, you add Rs 3 crore of production and suddenly you are at a Rs 9 crore cost,” the executive explains. “If the overall commitment goes to Rs 11 crore, recovering that from the market becomes extremely difficult.”
Broadcast itself, insiders point out, can deepen the challenge. Sehgal notes that once a concert is put on television, “the artist cost almost doubles”, pushing organisers into an even narrower margin situation where sponsorship has to work harder to recover inflated costs.
Why broadcasters are still testing the waters
Despite these challenges, broadcasters argue that concerts are not being viewed purely as standalone profit centres, at least not in the short term. For many, live events function as brand extensions rather than immediate P&L drivers, offering visibility, audience engagement and cross-platform value.
Industry executives point out that occasional success stories are driven by strong cultural moments and storytelling. Honey Singh’s return to the stage, for instance, benefitted from nostalgia and a millennial wave that translated into ticket sales. Such moments, however, are episodic rather than predictable, particularly in an environment where consumer spending on experiences is becoming more selective.
The market itself is also undergoing a phase of correction. Rajat Uppal, Business head of concerts and live events at ABP, believes the industry is gradually aligning expectations with demand. “Every industry requires one to be reasonable and sensible in expectations,” he says. “Some tours might give you 25 per cent profitability, some might give you 10 percent. Targeting an average of 15 per cent profitability for the events business is a sensible level.”
Uppal notes that the initial euphoria around live experiences is fading. Over the past two to three months, several announced tours have been partially cancelled or called off entirely. “That is because not everything you put out will work,” he says. “Consumers allocate only a certain amount each month for live or experiential spending, and with so much offering in the market, demand and supply are correcting.”
He also highlights the importance of spacing and relevance. Artists touring too frequently dilute demand. “If a tour with an artist is followed by another tour with the same artist four months later in similar cities, the chances of it flying are lower,” Uppal says. “That is why big artists do not tour every four or six months. Some of the biggest artists actually skip a year. For example, we are touring with Sunidhi currently.”
A strategic experiment, not a settled model
For news broadcasters, live concerts remain a strategic experiment rather than a settled business vertical. While India’s live events market continues to grow rapidly, concerts remain artist-led, capital-intensive and dependent on upfront payments with limited monetisation levers for news networks.
Sehgal sums up the long-term challenge succinctly. “In this business, unless the ticketing supports the overall revenue model, sponsorship will only help marginally,” he says. “The profit has to come from other sources of revenue, which are ticketing and merchandise. Sponsorship should be viewed as pure cream, an additional benefit, not the primary financial driver.”
The opportunity is real, but so are the constraints. As one senior executive puts it, the space may look exciting and scalable, but without a clear revenue architecture, concerts will remain a high-risk, learning-led play for news broadcasters rather than a dependable growth engine.