T-Series

n the 1990s, T-Series released many of the best-selling Bollywood soundtrack albums, including Nadeem–Shravan's Aashiqui (1990), the best-selling Indian soundtrack album of all time.[1] Currently, the T-Series YouTube channel is the most-viewed YouTube channel in the world, with nearly 1.7 billion monthly views, as of December 2017.

History

T-Series was founded by Gulshan Kumar in the 1980s, as a small company initially selling pirated Bollywood songs.[3] T-Series' first original film soundtrack release was for Lallu Ram in 1984, with music scored by Ravindra Jain.[4] The company's breakthrough came with Aashiqui (1990),[3] a film soundtrack album composed by duo Nadeem–Shravan (Nadeem Akhtar Saifi and Shravan Kumar Rathod), which sold 20 million units in India,[5] and is the best-selling Bollywood soundtrack album of all time.[1] Besides music production, the company has also ventured into film production.[6]

In 1997, T-Series founder Gulshan Kumar was murdered by Mumbai underworld organization D-Company.[7] Currently, key people of the company are Kumar's son Bhushan Kumar and his younger brother Krishan Kumar.[6]

As of January 2018, the label's music channel has over 35 million subscribers, making it the 2nd most-subscribed YouTube channel, and the most subscribed Hindi-language and Indian YouTube channel. It is the most viewed channel on YouTube having more than 30 billion views