China Focus: Forum tunes China's music market

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BEIJING -- Prominent Chinese and international music professionals had discussed at the just-concluded Dongdong Convention in Beijing how to improve the fortunes of the domestic music market.

Although the market is growing steadily and service providers generate more than 2 billion US dollars in revenue by sales of music downloads and ringtones each year, the revenue of the recording industry is less than 100 million US dollars annually.

Held by Kaiguan Culture Beijing and French-based promoter Fernando Ladeiro-Marques on Friday and Saturday, the Dongdong Convention focused on how to better the situation for artists, labels and concert promoters in China.

While the revenue of recorded music remains low for most artists and labels because of widespread piracy and a lack of transparency in service providers' distribution of fees, live music is a strongly growing market, said Shen Lihui, founder of the Strawberry Music Festival. Festivals are becoming a popular lifestyle trend in the young Chinese middle class and consequently interesting for brands, too.

Cooperation with brands can be a win-win situation for both companies and artists, Terry Xiang of Nova Entertainment Beijing said. "Some brands are looking for young, original characters. For the artist, it's important that the brand is cool and not pushing him aggressively to do stupid things."

Concert promoters like Live Nation China carefully analyze the market before deciding whether to organize a tour for an artist. That includes checking song downloads and social media as well as talking to trusted peers in different cities, said Managing director Robb Spitzer. A lot of likes and followers on social media alone doesn't guarantee full concert venues, especially not in second and third-tier cities.