Outdustry | 格外音乐

Every man and his dog is looking to China as the ‘next big thing’, but should the western music industry executive also be packing Fido into air freight and de-camping to the Middle Kingdom? Before anyone considers investing energy in China, it is important to be aware of just how different the industry is over here. There are some genuine areas of opportunity but let’s start with the grim facts:

• Physical piracy runs at around 90%.
• The average gig ticket is £3 and charging anything over £7 for a concert will alienate the young Chinese music crowd.
• Publishing is a foreign idea to the Chinese and is therefore a tiny, unpredictable source of income.
• All media is government owned or heavily government monitored and, in most cases, requires ‘financial incentives’ in return for coverage.
• Despite a population of 1.3 billion people, the legitimate physical music market was only worth US$86million in 2006, making it the 20th biggest in world.
• All foreign companies must enter a joint venture in order to set up shop in China, handing over at least 51% of their company in the process.
• All music has to go through lengthy and seemingly arbitrary government censorship procedures.
• China is a black hole of statistics, quite often by design, making market research and due diligence incredibly difficult.

Kang Mao of legendary Beijing band SUBS, performing at ‘Hong Di’ : September 2007

As in most other markets in Asia, pop music has a real stranglehold over the mainstream – Mando-Pop, Canto-Pop, J-Pop, K-Pop – Glossy, inoffensive music that satisfies the censors as well as the ‘bland criteria’ necessary for across-the-board media coverage. Despite the diverse musical heritage of China, mainstream pop is almost entirely informed by western music, from the basic pop song format through to instrumentation and lyrical content, although general production quality is still very poor. The Chinese audience, therefore, are already well familiar with all of the stock traits of western music: Guitar solos, crap raps in the middle-eight of pop songs, warbly diva vocals, key changes at the end of ballads, pseudo-rock bands, pseudo-hip-hop bands etc. Your average western band, therefore, does not sound totally alien, its just that no-one is willing to spend money promoting an international (and therefore niche) act when the returns are currently so poor. It’s all about hitting the mass market straight out of the box ie. Not an easy climate for an indie to be operating in.

It’s not all doom and gloom though. China is a blank canvas for the music business. You just have to be VERY open minded, adventurous and, above all, patient to attempt to do business here. Please leave your pre-conceptions and western business models at the door as they will not serve you well. If you do come in this spirit then you will find a testing ground for the future of the global industry – a totally unique market where the rules are being made up on the hoof, all set in the most populous country on the planet.

© Ed Peto 2007

NOTE: This is an extract from the ‘Access China’ report commissioned by UK Trade and Industry Department and British Underground.