T-Series (company)

T-Series was founded on 11 July 1983 by Gulshan Kumar, at the time a fruit juice seller in the Daryaganj neighbourhood of Delhi. The company initially sold pirated Hindi film songs, prior to releasing original music. Back then, the Indian audio cassette market was small-scale, with widespread piracy, but there was growing demand for cassette music. According to Rediff, while Kumar "was involved in piracy, he was passionately market- and consumer-driven." The company also took advantage of loopholes in copyright law allowing for the release of cover versions of songs, which T-Series would then flood the market with. T-Series' first original film soundtrack release was for Lallu Ram in 1984, with music scored by Ravindra Jain. The company's breakthrough came when it released the soundtrack for the 1988 film Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak (also known as QSQT), directed by Mansoor Khan and starring Aamir Khan and Juhi Chawla. The Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak soundtrack, composed by Anand–Milind and written by Majrooh Sultanpuri, became the best-selling Indian soundtrack album of 1988 and one of the best-selling Indian soundtrack albums of the 1980s, with more than 8 million units sold. The biggest hit song from the album was "Papa Kehte Hain", sung by Udit Narayan and picturised on Aamir Khan. T-Series founder Gulshan Kumar soon played a key role in Hindi film music's cassette boom of the late 1980s with his affordable T-Series albums. T-Series later became a leading music label with the release of Aashiqui (1990), and is the best-selling Hindi film soundtrack album of all time. A cover version of "Dheere Dheere" from Aashiqui was later sung by Yo Yo Honey Singh and released by T-Series in 2015. T-Series was largely responsible for sparking a boom for the Indian music industry in the early 1990s. The annual earnings of T-Series grew from () in 1985 to () in 1991, and by 1997 had reached (). In 1997, T-Series founder Gulshan Kumar was murdered by the Mumbai mafia syndicate D-Company. After Gulshan Kumar's death in 1997, the company has since been led by his son Bhushan Kumar, with the help of Gulshan's younger brother Krishan Kumar. As a film production company, T-Series has had some moderate success. The highest-grossing T-Series film production to date is the critically acclaimed sleeper hit Hindi Medium (2017), written by Zeenat Lakhani, directed by Saket Chaudhary, and starring Irrfan Khan and Saba Qamar. It grossed () worldwide, with in China alone, becoming one of the top 20 highest-grossing Indian films of all time. One of the most expensive Indian films was T-Series's Saaho, a sci-fi thriller with a production budget of , released in 2019. == YouTube presence==

T-Series joined YouTube on 13 March 2006, but only started uploading videos in late 2010. The T-Series YouTube channel is run by a team of 13 people at the T-Series headquarters. In January 2017, T-Series surpassed PewDiePie to become the world's most-viewed YouTube channel, and as of July 2025 it has over 306 billion views. On 10 September 2018, the channel received a Custom Ruby Play Button on reaching 50 million subscribers. It is also the second channel ever to hit 70 million subscribers. and in December 2021, became the first channel to reach 200 million subscribers. Over 2 time periods, T-Series was the most-subscribed YouTube channel; a 5-day period in March 2019, and a 1,876 day period between April 2019 and June 2024. As of September 2025, T-Series has over 304 million subscribers, making it the second most-subscribed YouTube channel, behind MrBeast. On average, T-Series gains 76,000 subscribers daily. T-Series channel also owns a multi-channel network, with 29 channels (excluding Lahari Music), which include YouTube channels such as T-Series Telugu, T-Series Tamil, Bollywood Classics, T-Series Kids Hut, T-Series Apna Punjab, T-Series Kannada, Shabad Gurbani, Health And Fitness, T-Series Bhakti Sagar (mainly dedicated to Hindu devotional music, and to a lesser extent Jain, Sikh, Muslim, Buddhist and Christian), Pop Chartbusters, T-Series Malayalam, T-Series Classics, T-Series Regional, hamaarbhojpuri, T-Series Gujarati, T-Series Marathi, T-Series Bhavageethegalu & Folk, Bhakti Sagar Telugu, Bhakti Sagar Tamil, Bhakti Sagar Malayalam, T-Series Bhakti Marathi, Bhakti Sagar Kannada, T-Series Islamic Music, T-Series Kids Hut-Portuguese Fairy Tales, T-Series Haryanvi, T-Series Kids Hut-Telugu Kathalu, T-Series Kids Hut-Cuentos en Español and T-Series Kids Hut Tamil. On top of this, seven of their channels are among the top 100 most-subscribed channels in India, including T-Series, Bhakti Sagar, Apna Punjab, Pop Chartbusters, Bollywood Classics, T-Series Regional, Lahari Music. T-Series' 29 channels accumulated a total of more than 184 million YouTube subscribers as of July 2019. During JanuaryJuly 2018, T-Series earned an income of from YouTube. The most popular song on the T-Series channel is "Dilbar" (2018), an updated version of a 1999 song from Sirf Tum originally composed by Nadeem–Shravan, reinvisioned by Tanishk Bagchi with Middle-Eastern musical influences, and a music video featuring Arabic belly dancing from Moroccan-Canadian dancer Nora Fatehi. It has become one of the most popular Hindi film music videos of all time, with its international success inspiring an Arabic language version released by T-Series, also featuring Nora Fatehi. "Dilbar" is popular across South Asia and the Arab world, with all versions of the song having received more than 1billion views on YouTube. The most popular T-Series artist on YouTube is Punjabi language artist Guru Randhawa, whose song "Lahore" (2017) has crossed 1 billion views on YouTube. "Slowly Slowly", Guru Randhawa's collaboration with American rapper Pitbull released by T-Series, received 38million views within a day, becoming one of the most-viewed music videos in 24 hours. The growth of T-Series' YouTube channel has been attributed to India's emerging online population. A major breakthrough in India's Internet growth came in September 2016 with the advent of 4G network Reliance Jio, offering data at very low costs. The growth of T-Series is also attributed to its growing audience outside of India. On 1 June 2024, MrBeast overtook T-Series and gained the top spot. ==Legal issues==

In November 2007, T-Series filed a lawsuit against YouTube for infringing on the copyright of its music by allowing users to upload videos of its music onto YouTube, which could be accessed for free, and obtained an interim order against YouTube from the Delhi High Court, which restrained YouTube from infringing on its copyrights. T-Series and YouTube settled out of court in January 2011. In August 2019, it was reported that T-Series and PewDiePie had settled their legal disputes outside of court. ==Film production==

This is a list of soundtrack albums that were published under the T-Series label, excluding films that were also produced by T-Series (see Production filmography above). All information on the years of release of the albums has been/is being found with the help of Discogs and MySwar Hindi cinema Original Amitabh Bachchan Corporation Limited (acquired) Plus Music (acquired) Krishna Music (acquired) Big Music (acquired) Kannada cinema T-Series collaborated with Lahari Music. Malayalam cinema T-Series collaborated with Lahari Music. Tamil cinema T-Series collaborated with Lahari Music, Big Music and other prominent labels. Telugu cinema T-Series collaborated with Lahari Music Bengali cinema International ==See also==