It’s been a great week for independent artists.
Yesterday MBW reported that distribution service TuneCore has entered into a partnership with China-based Tencent Music Entertainment Group (TME) that will make over 250,000 TuneCore artists’ recordings available to TME’s massive listener base in China.
In addition to TuneCore’s deal, this week has seen rival service CD Baby announce, via a blog post, that it’s also partnered with TME to deliver its catalog of streaming-eligible tracks to three TME services, QQ Music, KuGou Kuwo.
US-based CD Baby represents over 750,000 recording artists, 170,000 songwriters, and over 9 million tracks across 800+ genres.
Music streaming and download service QQMusic currently has over 400m monthly active users in China, while KuGou is currently the largest streaming service in China. Kuwo is the fourth largest music streaming service in China.
TME owns an estimated 84% market share of music streaming in China, the world’s seventh largest music market in 2018, according to the IFPI.
MIDiA Research estimates that total revenue generated by ‘self-releasing’ artists in 2018 was $643 million – up 35% on 2017, when the equivalent annual number hit $472m.
CD Baby alone contributed over $100m of that $600m-plus independent artist revenue last year.
In March, CD Baby owner AVL Digital Group and its portfolio of businesses, including AdRev, DashGo and Soundrop were acquired by Downtown Music Holdings, the parent company of Downtown Music Publishing and Songtrust.
“China and other markets with lots of potential listeners, high mobile phone usage, low cost bandwidth, and leading streaming platforms present our members with opportunities to connect with literally hundreds of millions of potential new fans.”
Tracy Maddux, CD Baby (pictured Main)
“Making our members’ music available in the world’s largest market for streaming subscribers offers tremendous potential for independent and emerging artists to be heard and connect with fans,” says CD Baby CEO Tracy Maddux.
“China and other markets with lots of potential listeners, high mobile phone usage, low cost bandwidth, and leading streaming platforms present our members with opportunities to connect with literally hundreds of millions of potential new fans,” says Maddux. “Tencent is a leader in China and throughout Asia.”Music Business Worldwide
