Musicians cross borders with multiple ecosystems to find breakthrough points, Internet digital music becomes the first choice

Jiang Shan, chief content officer and senior vice president of Ocean Music, believes that whether it is electronic products or physical products, a large number of users, high-quality content and fan groups have found grafting points through online platforms. At present, many music platforms are exploring and trying in this direction, which may become a way and model for truly realizing music services.

Original title: Internet music breaks through, here must have its own melody

. As of May 2016, the music creation App "Harmony Volume", founded by singer Zheng Jun and with the responsibility of "naming original music", was officially launched for one anniversary. Previously, on March 4, it took nearly a year for him to select 10 songs from the works uploaded to the platform by various new creators and new creators, and to perform the title "Hezuo Volume No. 1." Shi "is the album name and is digitally distributed on multiple online music platforms in China.

This is also regarded by the industry as the title "Literary Youth Around the World Unite! Writing songs can make money!" The mystery of the poster was revealed. However, for online music platforms, increasing the power of originality and breaking the profit bottleneck caused by the lack of freshness of upstream content may be more urgent than what Zheng Jun often calls "musicians save themselves."

Just on June 1, the archaeological music cartoon "Zeng Hou Yi" produced by the Hubei Province Museum and the Hubei Province Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology premiered in Wuhan. "Even the old-fashioned ones are playing new tricks. Can online music still survive on the record company's song library?" Industry insiders sigh, more and more reveal in addition to the industry as a whole looking forward to breakthrough craving.

On June 2, Wen Hao, deputy director of Tianfeng Securities Research Institute and chief analyst of Media and Internet, spoke at a forum and pointed out that whether it is on the PC side or the mobile side, the dividends of netizens are gradually fading, and the golden age of the mass market has also followed. Past. In the field of pan-entertainment, the probability of large platform-based companies appearing is getting smaller and smaller, but small companies are still full of opportunities.

Singer

Wang Feng, a musician who also chose to seek breakthroughs on the Internet, like Zheng Jun, to find breakthroughs on the Internet. At the end of February 2016, Wang Feng launched an online radio station called imixdio and launched a high-profile so-called "X" project, in which the keywords all pointed to originality.

Some industry insiders analyzed this and said that compared with Tencent, Ocean Music Group (Kugou, Kuwo) and Ali, which have formed a three-pronged situation, the platforms of musicians such as Wang Feng and Zheng Jun appear very weak.

This gap is further widening as mainstream music platforms rely on the "strictest order" for online music copyright issued in July last year to further increase competition for upstream content resources. In February alone, Alibaba Music and iQiyi formed strategic cooperation with SM, a famous South Korean entertainment company, and Universal Music, which accounts for 25.7% of the global record market, respectively, in order to increase their own copyright library reserves and build solid copyright barriers.

But even so, facing the Ocean and Tencent departments, which have 20 million and 15 million song copyrights, the Ali system, which has only 2.5 million copyrights, is also in an awkward situation. Hongze Research's Internet Music Report released in March pointed out that due to copyright reasons, the number of users of Tiantian Music and Xiami Music in Ali's system has declined. In addition, Netease Cloud Music has quickly exceeded 100 million users due to its excellent user experience, but it has also been caught in copyright storms in music library resources in the past two years. Based on this, Hongze Research also believes that the size of the music library and exclusive copyright are the main reasons why users choose online music apps.

In this state, many small and medium-sized music platforms have fallen into a situation where there are no songs to buy and no songs to play. In this regard, Wang Feng, Zheng Jun and others all chose to break through in a quite alternative way.

In addition to the "X" plan that has not yet been truly disclosed, Wang Feng's layout of online music has actually begun. It launched its own brand FIIL headphones in October 2015, with more than one million bookings at the time of release. Some commentators pointed out that this layout of headphone hardware + online music platform may create a breakthrough point in four directions: musicians, record companies, hardware manufacturers, and user terminals.

A break-through model like this with hardware opening has become the first choice for trial and error on many music platforms. Xiaomi Internet Radio, which went on sale in March, deeply integrates Himalayan radio in content, accommodating more than 15 million sounds including music; and in May last year, Qihoo 360 launched the Dong Dong Audio, which was similar to Shrimp Music, Duo Listen Radio, Dragonfly FM, etc. have launched similar cooperation. Music platforms such as Kuwo Music, Domi Music and Tiantian Music have also launched supporting headphone products in the intention of using music hardware to stick users.

This intelligent player-style traditional hardware into a platform terminal with its own sound source is also quite similar to the story of Apple's use of an iPod with a powerful music copyright library to subvert traditional MP3. In 2014, Apple acquired Beats, a manufacturer of high-end headphones and speakers, for a sky-high price of US$3.2 billion, which was also the intention.

However, such a cross-border model still cannot completely break the content bottleneck.

The platform strategy behind the new generation of singers

At the recently held seminar on "Online Music Copyright Protection and Business Models", representatives generally believed that the music industry has developed rapidly in recent years, but the core problem is that there are fewer new songs and more covers of old songs., and old programs are difficult to support the sustainable development of an industry. The core issue of the entire music industry is originality.

Singer Wang Lin, who became popular with the online song "Can't Be Hurt", also stated on the Internet that the reason why he chose to make an online divine song was actually a helpless move. On the other side of the story, she relied on this song "Can't afford to hurt" to obtain considerable material rewards.

But the helpless choice at the beginning is now becoming the first choice for musicians. At the end of last year, Dou Jingtong, a "Star Second Generation", launched the single "River Run", which was released in the form of digital music on music apps such as QQ Music, Netease Cloud Music, Kugou Music, Baidu Music and Shrimp Music. In just half a day, it sold nearly 10,000 yuan. The new generation of musicians such as the Chopsticks Brothers and TFBOYS who debuted on the Internet have also gained their first pot of gold in the music field in a similar way.

"Music that cannot be shared elsewhere has become the key to stimulating netizens who are accustomed to the free model to actively pay." Industry insiders commented. This has also stimulated online music platforms to no longer be satisfied with being a porter character who copies works of upstream content companies online, which is laborious and expensive but difficult to make profits, and to actively deploy their own original music support plans.

In 2014, Shima Music took the lead in launching the "Light Seeking Plan", which voted for independent musicians online through netizens + jury to help them publish records, supplemented by a series of promotional plans such as album promotion, MV shooting, and tour funding. And successively launched 13 "Light Seeking Plan" series albums.

In September 2015, Kugou launched the "Hundred Million Yuan Music Dream Fund Plan"; in the same month, Netease Cloud Music launched the "Ideal Musicians Support Plan"; in October, QQ Music launched the "Mass Creation + Music" plan... This series of plans, all target the recruitment of independent musicians and original new songs.

Zhuang Xinyan can be regarded as a microcosm of musicians who started on the Internet. In 2013, Zhuang Xinyan held the online debut of the new album "Ten Thousand Lodges" on Fanxing.com. The single of the same name received more than 10 million Internet clicks on the day it was released, and it became one of the top ten hits on the QQ Music 2013 Hot Song List. One. After that, she went from online to offline, signed contracts with a record company, held commercial performances, and was active on the stage.

Before her, many online songs, including Yang Chengang's "Mice Love Rice", Pang Long's "Two Butterflies", and Xuecun's "Northeastern People Are Living Lei Feng", which kicked off online original music, all reflected the powerful charm of "Internet + Original".

Now, with the collective efforts of music platforms, the rise of phenomenon-level online original music and singers, which have only been a case in the past few years, is becoming more and more frequent. Whether the prospects or the "money scene", they have greatly surpassed traditional musicians. The situation and at the same time stimulate the creative enthusiasm of musicians. Perhaps, in media reports not long ago, Xu Jingqing, author of the theme song and interlude of "Journey to the West" in the "86 edition", lamented the sad story of "I want to hold a" Journey to the West "theme concert, but I still can't get the money together", and reflected the current situation of traditional musicians whose works are popular and the authors are poor "will be improved to a certain extent.

In March 2016, the "2015 - 2016 China Mobile Music Client Market Research Report" released by Ai Media Consulting also showed that 69.4% of users can accept a song with a maximum charge of less than 1 yuan. This also proves that users 'payment habits are being developed.

More music forms welcome Internet +

Ocean Music Jiang Shan, chief content officer and senior vice president, believes that whether it is electronic products or physical products, a large number of users and high-quality content plus fan groups have found grafting points through the online platform. At present, many music platforms are exploring and trying in this direction, which may become a way and model for truly realizing music services.

The direction of exploration that Jiang Shan mentioned may not be clear. However, it is not difficult to find that some current attempts at music platforms have jumped out of the regular paradigm of pop music or online divine comedy on the original and exclusive route, and have begun to explore the marginal areas that online music used to ignore.

In early March, a piece of news from China Record Corporation attracted the attention of the industry. In its recently launched opera App "Listening to Opera", the first batch of content included representative Peking Opera, Pingju, Henan Opera, Yue Opera, Qin Opera, Sichuan Opera, Cantonese Opera, Huangmei Opera, etc. 42 operas from the north and south, bringing together wonderful arias from 116 famous performing artists from Peking Opera master Mei Lanfang to major local operas. The App has been well received by many opera fans as soon as it was released.

This is not an isolated case of opera as a new force in network music. The App "Xiyuan", which was launched in November 2015, attracted nearly 3 million fans in just three months and received a strategic investment of 30 million yuan.

At the beginning of this year, a Cantonese opera digital album called "Jiayun·Liyin" was exclusively released on Cool Dog Music. As an innovative measure by the Guangdong Cantonese Opera House, this album has become another attempt by the theater to move from offline stage to online music after last year's new Cantonese opera "Decisive Battle for Tiance Mansion", which was created based on the online game "Swordsman Online Edition 3".

More and more online music platforms are also turning their perspectives to music genres that were ignored by the Internet in the past. In March 2016, Migu Music launched the "Hearing the Most Good Voices Discovered in Yunnan-Yunnan Ethnic Music DNA Searching Journey", with the intention of building a platform for external display and promotion of Yunnan's ethnic music and ethnic musicians through the Internet.

In the same month, an ancient music recitation called "Finding Life and Half a Day" was successfully staged through Internet crowdfunding, offline performances, and online synchronization through the joint efforts of the original music club Xiyin Society and the original music website 5SING.

This is not the first time that Xiyin Society has tried to realize its original music dream through the Internet. In July last year, Xiyin Society launched the "Renshi Ci Hua" recitation + song ancient style album with the theme of paying tribute to Wang Guowei. Through crowdfunding, nearly one million funds were raised; and the ancient style recitation concert "Seeking Ci Hua Is the World" held in November received full support from Kugou Music and 5SING.

"Music forms such as opera and folk music may not seem to be popular or mainstream enough in the past, but through the long tail effect of the Internet, they can be vertically cut into niche markets." Industry insiders pointed out that this is not just a way for online music platforms to expand their content libraries at a time when copyright fees are getting higher and higher. Compared with pop music, these relatively niche music types are more scarce. On the Internet, scarcity often means higher enthusiasm for paying. Once they are spread through the Internet and recreated according to the characteristics of online audiences, these music types can be used. The average age of the audience whose current high music genre is lower, enhancing their vitality.

From this point of view, in the future, folk music such as pipa, erhu, flute, and guzheng will likely become a new driving point for online music platforms to gather "ticket friends" and complete monetization.

Editor: Nancy