Spiritualism, a growing industry
A growing numer of 'godmen' airing their 'wisdom' on multiple television channels devoted to religion has led to a growth in the market for spirituality.
"The market of sprituality is huge. If we talk about only spritual channels, the market is around 18 to 20 crores but the spritual gurus' market is around 2,000 crores, which includes VCDs, CDs, books, medicines and periodicals", says Sanjay Pahwa, former Associate Vice President of a religious channel.
"There were just a few of them some years ago and they were known as the 'bhajan' and 'kirtan' channels. Now there are many more - there is Aastha, Sanskar, Sadhana, Jagran, Shradha, to name a few," he adds.
While pointing out that now channels are tailoring their content to suit requirements of a changing audience, he adds, "It is just about 'satsangs' or religious shows that are aired on such channels but also includes a mix of health shows, lifestyle programming, religious tourism, art and culture to attract a wide cross section of people. Some channels like Aastha are reaching out to the NRIs in US, UK, Canada", he says.
Mohammed Asif, Senior Manager, Tips industries, says that the market for devotional music is the second largest, next to Bollywood music and is growing at a rate of 20-25 per cent per year.
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