InSync: India's First 24-Hour Classical Music Television Channel
InSync is a Mumbai-based Indian television channel devoted to classical and heritage music — the first 24-hour channel in India built around Indian classical music. Launched on satellite on 15 August 2013 by Perfect Octave Media Projects, it was the brainchild of Ratish Tagde, a renowned violinist and managing director of Perfect Octave Media. With the tagline "Music To Experience," InSync set out to showcase the rich tradition of Indian classical music through vocal, instrumental, dance and fusion formats, while also ranging across Sufi music, ghazals, folk and other heritage genres that mainstream music television ignored.
At launch, executives at its advertising sales partner called InSync the only heritage music channel available, with a first-mover advantage in a genre television had never attempted at full-channel scale. Its story is that of a concert-organising company turning its artist relationships and performance archive into a broadcast property — and of the challenges and distinctiveness that come with building a television channel for purists and enthusiasts rather than for the mass music market.
Overview
InSync is a niche, heritage music channel broadcasting round the clock from Mumbai, Maharashtra. Its programming covers Indian classical music in its Hindustani and allied traditions — vocal and instrumental performance, concerts, interviews, talk shows, documentaries, genre-based reality formats and youth-oriented fusion shows. Unlike Bollywood-driven music channels, InSync deliberately positioned itself in the non-Bollywood space: Perfect Octave said at launch that, unlike other music channels, InSync would own valuable intellectual property rights in the non-Bollywood music genre and become a major player in that segment.
The channel's name is itself a statement of intent. Tagde explained that the name refers to the basic element of music — synchronisation — and was meant to communicate that the channel's content is in sync with what its audience wants. That audience, in the channel's own research, was larger than sceptics might have assumed: its pre-launch study reported that around 51 per cent of Indians listened to music on a dedicated music channel and around 67 per cent welcomed the idea of a classical-based music channel.
History and Launch
InSync was publicly unveiled in April 2013, when Perfect Octave announced India's first 24-hour Indian classical music based channel, initially expected to premiere in June that year. The channel was already available in test mode on InCable in Mumbai from 11 April 2013. Its formal satellite launch followed on 15 August 2013 — Indian Independence Day — on the Intelsat 20 satellite through a teleport at Vashi, Navi Mumbai, as the company and its sales partner confirmed when announcing distribution and advertising arrangements later that month.
The launch plan reflected the economics of a niche channel. InSync began on digital cable platforms, since DTH carriage fees were high, with Tagde hoping to reach DTH by the following year. It started with about four hours of fresh content, which he intended to raise eventually to ten hours. As part of its launch marketing, the channel planned to connect with its local target audience by organising 40 to 50 musical concerts across India over the following year, simultaneously covering them on the channel — a strategy that used the promoter's concert business as both a content pipeline and a publicity engine.
Ownership and Network
InSync is owned by Perfect Octave Media Ltd — Perfect Octave Media Projects — an event management company specialising in organising music concerts. That origin gave the channel direct access to concerts by musical stalwarts; at announcement, the company pointed to performances by artists of the stature of the late Pandit Ravi Shankar and the late Jagjit Singh among the concert material it could draw on. The company's wider business includes event concepts and design, audio-video production, communication materials and multimedia services, all of which fed the channel's production capability.
The founder, Ratish Tagde, is both a professional violinist who has won accolades as a performer and a company secretary by profession, serving as managing director of Perfect Octave Media. Around him, the channel assembled a commercial team at launch: Aidem Ventures was appointed media sales partner to handle advertising sales, with director Vikas Khanchandani and business head Nikhil Sheth fronting the association, and Manish Rach was brought in to head distribution. Sheth's launch assessment — that InSync offered a much higher level of engagement and branding opportunities beyond ordinary commercial time — captured how the channel intended to sell itself to advertisers.
Programming and Schedule
Concerts were the foundation of the early schedule: full performances by leading classical musicians, recorded through the promoter's concert network. Around them, the opening programming line-up included interviews, talk shows and documentaries about musicians and traditions, genre-based reality shows, and youth-based fusion shows designed to bring younger listeners towards classical forms. The genre range was deliberately broad within the heritage umbrella — Indian classical music at the centre, with Sufi, ghazals, folk and fusion around it — so that a viewer arriving for a ghazal evening might stay for a raga performance.
The flagship property announced at launch was I Can, a talent show focused on discovering and nurturing young talent. The talent discovered on the show was to be promoted on the channel and offered concerts in India and overseas — closing the loop between television exposure and the live concert circuit that the promoter knew best. Dance was also part of the format mix from the beginning, since the channel promised to showcase the classical tradition through vocal, instrumental, dance and fusion formats alike.
Language and Regional Focus
InSync is a pan-Indian channel whose language is music itself, but its spoken content — interviews, talk shows, documentaries and presentation — addresses a national audience, and its classical repertoire draws on performance traditions from across the country. Its research and concert-based launch strategy were explicitly all-India in scope: the planned 40 to 50 concerts were spread across India, and distribution deals were struck city by city and region by region through national multi-system operators.
The channel's home is Mumbai, where Perfect Octave is based and where the test broadcasts on InCable began, and its teleport at Vashi, Navi Mumbai, put its satellite uplink in the same metropolitan region. But its cultural geography is the concert map of India — the baithaks, festivals and auditorium circuits of the Hindustani and Carnatic worlds — rather than any single state or linguistic market.
Availability and Platforms
At its satellite launch in August 2013, InSync was available on major national multi-system operators covering, by the company's account, nearly 80 per cent of India's digital cable households: Hathway on channel 315, DEN on channel 463 and InCable on channel 450 were the confirmed launch positions. Deals were also sealed with GTPL, serving major parts of Gujarat, Patna, Kolkata, Pune and other cities, and Fastway in Punjab and Haryana, with discussions under way with other operators for all-India distribution.
Contemporary reports differ slightly on the channel's commercial model across its launch window: the earliest announcement described it as initially free-to-air on select digital cable networks, while the post-launch sales announcement described InSync as a pay channel available on the major MSOs. Either way, cable was the launch battleground — talks were held with major DTH platforms in India and a few international distribution players, reflecting the channel's ambition to reach the Indian diaspora audience for classical music as well as viewers at home. Its official web presence is at insyncmusic.net.
Audience and Market
InSync aimed at classical music purists and enthusiasts across ages, in Tagde's own description. Its pre-launch research suggested a substantial latent audience: Bollywood music accounted for the largest proportion of music lovers, with ghazals second and Indi-pop third, and a large share of listeners already used dedicated music channels — meaning a classical channel was not creating a habit but redirecting one. The channel's wager was that this audience, underserved by film-music television, would reward a specialist service with loyalty and engagement of the kind advertisers value.
The sales pitch built on that engagement. Aidem Ventures argued that InSync had the potential to set a standard for excellence and innovation in Indian television while forging deep connections with diverse and passionate audiences, and that its event-linked model allowed customisable, branded event solutions beyond standard advertising time. In a market where heritage culture rarely commanded television economics, InSync attempted to monetise attention through concerts, sponsorship and branded properties as much as through spots.
Notable People
Ratish Tagde is the defining figure of InSync: a violinist of recognised standing, a company secretary by profession, and the managing director who conceived the channel, named it, researched its audience and fronted its launch. His hope, expressed at announcement, was to expand music lovers' horizons through the channel. The artists associated with its concert library gave it instant stature — performances by the late Pandit Ravi Shankar and the late Jagjit Singh were cited at launch as examples of the stalwarts to whom the promoter's concert business gave it access. On the commercial side, Aidem Ventures' Vikas Khanchandani and Nikhil Sheth articulated the channel's advertising case, and Manish Rach led its distribution drive.
Recent Developments and Legacy
InSync's launch-era developments centred on distribution and sales: the Aidem Ventures appointment in late August 2013, the sealing of MSO deals beyond the three launch operators, and the concert-led marketing programme. The channel established the template of a heritage music service — concerts at its core, talent discovery through I Can, and a blend of performance, documentary and talk across classical, Sufi, ghazal, folk and fusion repertoire.
Whatever the commercial headwinds facing niche channels, InSync holds a clear place in Indian television history: it was the country's first 24-hour classical-based music channel, launched on satellite on 15 August 2013, and it proved that the repertoire of India's great concert tradition could anchor an entire television service. For students of Indian media, it remains the standard example of a passion-led, promoter-driven niche channel — a violinist's attempt to put the concert hall on television, in sync with an audience the industry had overlooked.
