For Bhushan Kumar, the contest with PewDiePie got personal when the Swedish comedian insulted India

Chairman and Managing Director of T-Series, Bhushan Kumar says that until six months ago, he didn’t even know how many subscribers his label’s You-Tube channel had. He has since taken notice. Today, the number of subscribers is quickly moving towards 100 million. Having recently surpassed Swedish comedian PewDiePie for YouTube supremacy, Kumar spoke to us about the battle that has gone viral. Excerpts

Q: You and PewDiePie had both been vying for the spot of the No. 1 YouTube channel, but the contest became bitter

I don't know why he is taking it so personally and seriously. I read somewhere that he is getting hackers to push people into subscribing to his channel. You are the biggest independent YouTuber, and we are the biggest in the world, so just chill, yaar.

Q: But then why the #BharatWinsYouTube campaign?

We ran it in response to the songs he made discrediting us and demeaning India. We wanted to show that a Made in India channel is the world's No. 1 because of its music, and that we're proud of this fact.

Q: There's been a lot of international press around this battle

The exposure has helped us. International artists, like Pitbull and DJ Snake, want to collaborate. We now have subscribers from Indonesia, Greece and Brazil, and China wants to do an Indo-China co-production.

Q: Does Spotify's entry challenge your YouTube supremacy?

t's a great platform which gives distribution to our catalogue. But Gaana, iTunes, Spotify, JioSaavn and Amazon are not competing with YouTube. YouTube is where you get branding and revenue, where content is analysed immediately to get a sense of what people like.