Chinese Internet users willing to pay for concert webcasts

BEIJING - A latest survey suggested that Chinese Internet users are willing to pay for quality contents online, among which concert ranks the third highest of all online video categories that they're willing to pay for.

The survey, released on Saturday, was conducted online by market research company CTR, a Sino-British joint venture.

Of all 4,338 valid responses collected online, 19 percent said they are willing to pay to watch "concerts" online, after "latest blockbuster movies" (43 percent) and "classic movies" (29 percent).

There are 32 percent respondents saying they are "not willing to pay for online video", according to the survey.

Result of the survey was testified by an unprecedented shot by Chinese rock star Wang Feng, who hosted a paid live webcast of his concert at China's national stadium in Beijing on Aug. 2 through China's online video service provider LeTV.com.

LeTV set the "ticket" price at 30 yuan ($4.9) and collected more than 75,000 paid accesses to the concert's live webcast and full length replay.

Both Wang Feng and LeTV were happy about the outcome, saying that the solid revenue suggested that paid live webcast of concerts has the potential of becoming another cash cow for the music industry.

The survey also showed that the potential online concert audiences are younger, educated and nearly half of them are living in China's eastern and southern regions.

Of those who were willing to pay for online concerts, 26 percent are between 25 and 29 years old, and 20 percent are between 30 and 34 years old. About 18 percent of them are between 15 and 19 years.

From the education perspective, 51 percent of them have a highest education of undergraduate, followed by junior college (28 percent) and high school (14 percent).

Geographically, 29.1 percent of them live in East China, while 18.9 percent of them live in South China. There is not much difference across genders, as 54 percent of respondents are male, while 46 percent are female.

The survey also said that 56.3 percent of those willing to pay for online concerts own a tablet PC, which is about 14 percentage points higher than tablets' penetration rate among all online video audience.

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