Business Brief: Hoopr Takes Its Music Licensing Into TV, OTT And Film Ads
The music-tech startup says Smash Plus cuts a weeks-long clearance to a few days. Kisna Jewellers is first, with a Tips song. Plus the week's other moves.
Hoopr, the music-tech startup that licenses label music to brands for their digital content, is going after the bigger cheques. The company said on Monday, 26 October, that its new Smash Plus service will clear songs for TV commercials, OTT advertising, films, web series, corporate films and games.
Its first customer is Kisna Jewellers, which has licensed "Woh Kisna Hai" from the Tips catalogue for a new campaign. The song comes from Subhash Ghai's 2005 film Kisna: The Warrior Poet, whose songs were shared between A.R. Rahman and Ismail Darbar.
Why it matters to labels
Broadcast sync pays more per licence and takes longer to clear. Hoopr describes the old route as separate deals with the record label, the music publisher and the copyright society, each negotiated on its own and usually taking several weeks. It says Smash Plus puts all three into one process that closes in a few days.
The pitch rests on the catalogue Hoopr already licenses for digital content: more than 23 labels, Universal Music Group, Tips and Warner Music India among them, and over 600 artists.
"Smash Plus applies the same process to television, OTT and film, where licence values are higher and the clearances more complex," said Gaurav Dagaonkar, Hoopr's co-founder and CEO. Hoopr estimates that more than 25,000 Indian brands could advertise on OTT, many of them without ever having licensed music for broadcast.
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Also on the business desk this week
Saregama has bought the audio rights to Kiran Abbavaram's Telugu film Reality, reportedly for about Rs 3.5 crore, and we have the details of the deal. Spotify India has been pitching brands on festive audio ads, while agencies still want proof that audio moves sales. And Weverse Con Festival India opens general ticket sales on BookMyShow at 12 pm IST on Friday, 30 October. Our lineup report has the acts and the Yashobhoomi venue.
More label and platform news is on our Business page.
(Source: Hoopr announcement via Adgully, 26 October 2026; Business Time, 26 October 2026; BookMyShow Weverse Con FAQ, 26 October 2026)
