HMV, which had monopolised the music scene for long with its pricing principles, had to face competition from companies like T-series, Tips and Venus in the 80s. The 90s saw a hike in the prices due to the boom in the pop music segment. These days, you can't help noticing the innumerable promotional ads selling music CDs at throwaway prices ranging anywhere between Rs 65 and Rs 99. Seems like the music industry has lost the confidence to sell its products even at prices that were prevalent a couple of years ago. Unfortunately, this is not a result of surplus production but a fallout of bad production, poor A&R practices and an attempt to package bad dreams in sweet-smelling perfume bottles. Even the channels that once ruled the roost like Zee with its popular TVS Saregama or Channel V Awards, seem to be trying to stem the downturn in their viewership graphs by indulging in publicity gimmicks in the hope of pushing up their TRPs. The most recent example is the Channel V Popstars tamasha. Wonder whatever happened to the winners of TVS Saregama and Close Up Antakshari contests? Those winners had been promised big deals by the doyens of our music industry. Surprisingly, we've never heard of them since!

Another point that needs to be highlighted is that music legends like Lata Mangeshkar and Asha Bhosle, and artistes like Baba Sehgal, Alisha Chinai, Remo Fernandes, Shaan, Lucky Ali, Sunidhi Chauhan and Shubha Mudgal were not creations of any star search or talent hunt. They scaled the peaks of their career by sheer dint of hard work and pure talent. There were no short-cuts to their success. I wish the girl band that Channel V is planning to launch later this year all success and hope that it doesn't go the Spice Girls’ way.