Tencent Music Entertainment Group Talks China at Music Matters

By Monica Tong

12 September, 2017 7:16pm GMT+8 / MYT

Tencent made a huge effort reaching out to the media and businesses outside of China as part of their marketing campaign to defuse myths surrounding the huge development in the music scene

Music industry leaders from Asia and rest of the world converged in one of the region’s most exciting music conference and festival All That Matters to discuss some of the most exciting issues before wrapping up the year 2017.

While some of us may think about how we can promote our own music, movers and shakers from the music industry have come together to join the 5-day music festival and 3-day conference held in the heart of the financial city of Singapore. Held at Ritz Carlton Millenia, the conference wraps up the first day of the conference today discussing some of the most prominent issues bugging one of the largest industry in the world – Music.

Hosted by All That Matters, Tencent made a huge effort reaching out to the media and businesses outside of China as part of their marketing campaign to defuse myths surrounding the huge development in the music scene that has seen large growth of interest from businesses for the last 3 or 4 years. China is aiming to crack piracy as the core to why they are now legalising works in order to start remunerating artists and their management.

At the China Music Forum – hosted by Tencent – Cussion Pang CEO of Tencent Music Entertainment Group gave a detailed presentation on the future of digital content. Tencent Music Entertainment Group helps more than 50 musicians including Adele, Jay Chou, Chris Lee, Lu Jan and BIGBANG to release digital albums on its platforms. Today, its total revenue of digital album sales has exceeded RMB300 million and is on its way to offering a firmer ecosystem to artists from Mainland China.

We had a chat with Rob Schwarz from Billboard prior to the panel about what’s happening in the next couple days with Tencent at the centre of attention.

“In recent years, Chinese government and music service providers like Tencent have been promoting the legal use of digital music. Especially, with the increasing Chinese fans on Korean music, Chinese music entertainment market will encounter an explosive growth, like corn bursting into popcorn,” said Yang Hyun Suk, CEO of YG Entertainment.

While we are still trying to burst the China bubble – busting myths and finding the truth on what is really happening to one of the largest music industry in the Eastern world, the numbers presented are some of the largest we have seen so far coming out of China.

Andy Ng VP of the Tencent Music Entertainment Group noted that first and second tiered cities in China require difference promotions in comparison to smaller cities. Wechat, owned by Tencent, has just reach 900 million users worldwide. With over 70% users from the 2^nd and 3^rd tiered cities in China, LIVE streaming has provided these smaller cities users access to some of the most exciting content especially popular concerts happening in Shanghai and Beijing. For tiered three and four cities consisting mainly of lower income users made up primarily of KUWO and KUGOU users, offline events are important to build fan interactions even they are hours away from the main event.

Tencent’s ‘Labels in China’ session, moderated by Rob Schwarz from BillBoard Magazine, include Jonathan Dworkin of Universal Music Group, Gavin Parry of Sony Music, Simon Robson of Warner Music Asia and Andy Ng of Tencent, to discussed insight and direction to executives wishing to explore the PRC whilst sharing case histories and demonstrations on how to connect with its 1 billion music lovers.

Tencent Talk China at Music Matters

The session ‘Music Business Opportunities and the Internet of Things’ was moderated by TC Pan Founder and CEO of Ultimate Music in a panel which included Jerry Yu from MediaTek Inc, Leo Poon from Hawk Internet and TCL Group, and Zhu Jiang from NIO.

The various sessions at the China Music Forum also touched on publishing and saw the giant labels discuss the future of publishing in China. The panel consisting of Sony, Tencent, and Warner is moderated by David Loiterton, Managing Director of MGT.

“With the strengthening of the crackdown on infringing content and pirated content online by the administrative departments, and the establishment and expansion of several music platforms, China is becoming a “real lucrative music market”, said IFPI Global Music Report 2016.

Ed Peto from Outdustry moderated the Live & Local Keynote with Scarlett Li from CMC Holdings and Shine Zhou from AEG Presents. The discussion revolves around the challenges faced by live event and talent management company that organises stadium-capacity concerts like Justin Bieber and Ed Sheeran.

Mics used for videos recorded by Music News Asia are sponsored by Audio-Technica.