Just what is Tencent’s Endgame?

Tencent’s combined $200 million investment in WMG follows on the heels of its $3.6 billion joint investment in Universal Music. It is hardly Tencent’s first investments in music, having spent $6.2 billion on music investments since 2016. But music is just one part of a much larger, supremely bold and undoubtedly disruptive strategy that is making the Chinese company an entertainment business powerhouse in the East and West alike.

Tencent is a product of the Chinese economic system

Tencent being a Chinese company is not incidental – it is pivotal. The Chinese economy does not operate like Western economies. Rather than following free market principles, it is a controlled economy in which everything – in one way or another – ultimately comes back to the state. In China, the economy is an extension of the state. The state takes an active role in the running of successful Chinese companies, sometimes very openly, sometimes in less direct ways, such as ensuring party nominees end up in management positions.

Chinese companies are used to working closely with the state – in its most positive light – as a business partner. When a company’s objectives align with those of the state, an individual company may gain preferential treatment at the direct expense of competitors. This is exactly the opposite way in which state involvement happens in the West (or is at least supposed to) – i.e. regulation. Tencent has benefited well from this approach, not least in music.

Tencent Music is the leading music service provider in China (78% market share in Q1 2020) and is also the exclusive sub-licensor of Universal, Sony and Warner in China. This means that Tencent’s streaming competitors have to license the Western majors’ music directly from it. Tencent clearly has a market incentive to ensure terms are less favourable than it receives itself. Netease’s CEO call the set up ‘unfair’ and regulatory authorities are at the least going through the motions of investigating. But the fact this set up could ever exist illustrates just how different the Chinese regulatory worldview is.

Investing in reach and influence

Why this all matters, is that when Tencent views overseas markets it does so with a very different worldview than most Western companies. Taking investments in two of the world’s three biggest record labels might feel uncomfortable from a Western free-market perspective, but to Tencent it just makes good business sense to have influence over as much of the market as it can get. What better way to help ensure you get good deals in the marketplace? Such as, for instance, exclusive sub-licensing into China.

Music is not Tencent’s main priority. For example, its combined $6.2 billion spent on music investments is less than the $8.6 billion that Tencent spent on acquiring 84% of gaming company Supercell in 2016). Nonetheless, music – along with games, video, messaging and live streaming – is one of the central strands of Tencent’s entertainment portfolio strategy.

Just as Apple, Amazon and Alphabet are building digital entertainment portfolios designed to compete in the ‘attention economy’, so is Tencent. In fact, it is fair to say that Tencent is prepping itself as a direct competitor to those companies. But while each of the Western tech majors compete in familiar (Western) ways, Tencent is taking a more Chinese approach.

If you don’t like the rules of the game, play a different game

Tencent’s entertainment investment strategy can be synthesised as follows:

• Take (predominately) minority stakes in companies to get the benefit of influence without having to shoulder the burden of ownership
• Invest end-to-end across the supply chain, from rights through to distribution
• Systematically invest in direct competitors so that they are all each other’s enemies but are all Tencent’s friend

This strategy has given Tencent access to and / or control of:

• Audience (e.g. QQ, WeChat, Weibo, Snapchat (12%), Kakao (14%), AMC Cinemas – via its stake in Wanda Group),
• Distribution (e.g. Tencent Music, Tencent Video, Tencent Games, Joox, Spotify (10%), Gaana, KuGou, Kuwo, QQ Music, Tencent Video, Tencent Games, Epic Games (40%)
• Rights (e.g. UMG (<10%), WMG (1.6%), Skydance (5%–10%), Supercell (84%), Glumobile (15%), Activision Blizzard (5%), Ubisoft (5%), Tencent Pictures)

The Western tech majors have built similar ecosystems, acquiring the audience and distribution parts of the supply chain (e.g. iOS, YouTube, Instagram, Twitch, Apple Music) but only rarely getting into rights (e.g. Apple TV+ originals) and never systematically investing in competing rights holders.

The Western tech majors may have often tetchy relationships with rights holders but their strategic focus (for now at least) is to be partners for rights holders. Tencent’s strategy is one of command and control: vertical supply chain integration secured through the sort of behind-closed-doors influence that billions of dollars’ worth of equity stakes get you.

Tencent may be the future of digital entertainment

Tencent is building the foundations of being one of – perhaps even the – global digital entertainment powerhouse. By taking stakes in two of the Western major labels, Tencent broke the unspoken gentleman’s agreement that streaming services and rights holders would remain independent of each other in order to ensure the market remains open and competitive. Now the Western tech majors have to choose whether to continue playing the old game or to get a seat at the table of the new game. Back in 2018 MIDiA predicted that over the coming decade Apple, Amazon or Spotify would buy a major record label. Maybe that prediction is not quite so outlandish anymore.

Travis Scott has Only Scratched the Surface of Music Games Tie Ups

In February 2019 Marshmello caused ripples of almost tidal proportions across the music business when 10.7 million Fortnite fans watched him perform a ‘concert’ in the game. Then in April 2020 Travis Scott followed in his shoes with his own Fortnite concert, pulling in 12 million players. Given that this was in the COVID-19 lockdown the 1.3 million increase was a relatively modest increase. However, Fortnite publisher Epic Games had learned its lessons from the Marshmello event and rather than limit audience demand to one event, turned it into a residency with a further 15 million players watching over four subsequent replays of the event. This took the total to 27 million, though there will be a substantial number that attended multiple performances.

What is clear is that a format has been established and that Epic Games is honing its promoter skillset. Fortnite events are labour intensive efforts to put on and currently do not scale well (hence only two events in 14 months). But there is a much bigger opportunity here for artists and one that gains new significance in the lockdown era.

The impact of COVID-19 recurring

With the cessation of live music in lockdown, artists have seen a dramatic fall in income. Established artists can expect to earn between 50% and 70% of their total income from live—that just disappeared. However fast lockdown measures are eased, live entertainment is going to take a long time to return to normal. Indeed, it may never do so.

Virologists point to the Spanish Flu outbreak after the First World War as the relevant precedent for understanding how the COVID-19 pandemic may play out. That was a far deadlier outbreak, infecting a third of the world’s population and killing up to 50 million. But crucially, it was not a single event. It had four major outbreaks over two years. It is likely that COVID-19 will not simply go away but instead will return, either in waves or as a continual background oscillation of infection.

As of May 1^st 2020 less than half a percent of the world’s population has been infected with COVID-19. Even allowing for that being just a tenth of the actual cases, that means that 95% of the population has not had COVID-19. Consequently, the majority of consumers are going to be concerned about returning to potentially infectious environments.

The combination of easing lockdown measures and weak consumer confidence means that live is not going to return to normal anytime soon. Social distancing measures will likely see rows of empty seats in larger venues and smaller, standing-only venues may struggle to operate at all. Reduced, spaced-out crowds will both harm the live experience and prevent many live events from being commercially viable to operate. Consumer concern may even make it hard for reduced capacities to be met. So, artists are not going to be able to reasonably expect a strong return of traditional live income in the mid-term future.

Lockdown lag

Live’s lockdown lag may have the knock-on effect of making artists take a more critical view of their streaming income. When live dominated their income mix, streaming’s context was a meaningful revenue stream that built audiences to drive other forms of income. It was effectively marketing artists got paid for. Now that artists are becoming more dependent on streaming income, the old concerns about whether they are getting paid enough will likely come back to the fore. It is in the interests of both labels and streaming services, that labels use this as an opportunity to revisit their streaming splits with artists. Labels cannot afford to have artists united against the labels’ primary income stream.

Live streaming is not yet ready for prime time

Live streaming of concerts is gaining traction but lockdown came a little too early for the sector. It is under developed, under monetised, under licensed, under professionalised and lacks the discovery layer crucial to make it ready for prime time (perhaps an opportunity for streaming services). On top of this, it does not create the same scarcity of experience that live music does and the rise of virtual festivals with artists playing just a few songs makes live more like a playlist experience, which favours the platforms over the artists. Enter stage left games.

Travis Scott fans are 2.3 times more likely to play Fortnite than overall consumers, but there are 80 other artist fanbases that are more likely to play Fornite than Scott’s. How do we know this?

Every quarter MIDiA fields a music brand tracker that – among many other things – tracks which games artists’ fans play. Looking across the 10 artist fanbases most likely to play three of the top games reveals a huge amount of untapped opportunity. The old model for games and music was sync. That is still a major opportunity but in the lockdown era the potential scope is so much wider.

Not every game is well suited to hosting virtual, gameplay concerts, but the console ecosystems can support so much more. Imagine if Flohio, Ben Howard, Koffee or Slowthai were to do put on exclusive performances live streamed to FIFA players via Xbox Live followed by a gaming session to which players would pay for a premium ticket to play against their favourite artists in an eSports type set up. Tickets would be limited, to create scarcity.

Lockdown economics

The lockdown lag will create a whole new set of economics across all industries. For music it will be about exploring new income streams to recast a new music business. Games will play a major part. No longer simply a place to sync music, games will become platforms for driving artist-fan engagement.

In the Attention Economy everything is connected. In lockdown economics those connections become productised and monetised, with benefits for all. Think of this like the K-Pop and Japanese Idol models, with superfans paying for extra access to their favourite artists. Instead of handshakes and meets and greets, we have gaming sessions and exclusive concerts. Artists benefit by connecting with fans and driving income; labels get to be participants in new revenue streams and help offset growing artist concern about streaming pay-outs; games companies get to add new revenue sources and products.

A dystopian virtual future

A final thought to leave you with. Tim Ingham’s recent piece suggested that Epic Games’ long view might be to create virtual artists, with the thinking being that the Marshmello and Travis Scott concerts were already in practice virtual artists. What if Epic Games is using these concerts to learn the ropes so that it could create its own roster of virtual artists. It could follow the Japanese and Korean music agency model of building rosters of employee artists, that operate under a work for hire basis. Epic Games would own 100% of all rights while the artists perform under stage names and as game avatars. Epic Games could make these virtual artists part of the Fortnite game itself to help build tribalism and fandom, and it of course already has a highly effective virtual merch store.

In doing so, Epic Games would create a games-centric music division that operates entirely outside of the confines of the traditional music industry. Dystopian perhaps, but also entirely feasible, which is why artists and labels should probably think less about becoming integrated into the games themselves and focus more on connecting their real selves with their gaming fans.

If you are a MIDiA client we will be publishing a report on this topic shortly with thousands of data points. If you are not yet a MIDiA client and would like to learn how to get access to this data email Stephen@midiaresearch.com

Take Five (the big five stories and data you need to know) November 25th 2019

Disney tidies its streaming stats: Disney is tidying up its streaming subscriber numbers in preparation for reporting the performance so far of Disney+. In the shake-up, ESPN falls from 3.4 million to three million while Hulu goes from a 28.5 million to 29 million. All figures Q3 2019. Headline: Disney is already a streaming powerhouse and is about to become even bigger.

Spotify awards: Spotify is moving into the music awards space. The only surprise is that Spotify didn’t do this sooner; this is the equivalent of MTV moving into the awards space in the 2010s. Spotify will be hoping, probably with good reason, that it will be able to make its awards a bigger deal than YouTube has its YouTube Music Awards.

Tecent’s global gaming empire: Tencent has invested in 40% of Fortnite owner Epic Games and 11.5% in competitor PUBG. By using access to the Chinese market as leverage for getting equity stakes in western games publishers, Tencent is building a global games business. It may even be en route to becoming a global tech major. It has a long way to go, through.

YouTube creators can take a break, perhaps: YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki claims her company’s analytics can take a break from making content and come back with bigger metrics. The data is likely skewed by a) under-performing channels taking a break, and b) the novelty factor of a returning creator. The underlying truth, however, is that YouTube’s monetisation system skews strongly towards high-volume output. The system needs changing if creators are to genuinely be able to take breaks.

Throw ladders down: Meghan Rapinoe’s acceptance speech for her Woman of the Year award presents a new vision for how those with influence should use their platform for others’ voices, by ‘throwing down ladders’ for others to climb up. She tackles inequality in many forms in her speech and sounds more like an accomplished activist politician than a sports personality. If only all sports people (and politicians) could make contributions like this. Go watch the video.

Why First is Far Less Important Than Best

Following Marshmello’s ‘live’ performance in Fortnite which was seen by 10 million simultaneous gamers, there has been the inevitable chorus of ‘but 2^nd life did this more than a decade ago’. As I referenced in my blog post over the weekend “In game live experiences like this are nothing new…”. The big deal with the Fortnite Marshmello gig was not whatwas done but how it was done.

It combined integrated merchandise (Marshmello dances and skins), a global shared experience that was also personal (only 50 gamers per game) and unique gameplay (gamers floated up into the sky). But perhaps smartest of all, this was not an event for Marshmello fans in the way that previous virtual concerts have been. This was a Fortnite event sound-tracked by Marshmello. Players were there because it was a Fortnite event. Marshmello though had instant credibility because he was part of the Fortnite experience (and of course being masked is a perfect brand fit). So instead of playing to an audience of existing fans Marshmello was handed, on a plate, millions of new fans in an instant, who they felt like they were part of something. (Wait for a major surge in streams of ‘Happier’). These are the reasons the Fortnite Marshemello event was so important, not simply because it was a virtual gig. This is what innovation looks like when executed well.

Execution is everything in innovation. The history of technology is defined by first movers that created a category but failed to go the distance, with an early follower learning the lessons from the first mover and then executing with market winning implementation.

The hard reality is that first movers bleed out on the cutting edge of invention, early followers prosper on the wave of innovation.

Marshmello Just Live Streamed on Fortnite…So Just What is a Concert?

On Saturday I watched my 12 year old son scoff down his meal so that he could rush upstairs to get logged on with his friends in time for a Marshmello live streamed event on Fortnite. As you can see from the video (click the link in the image to go through to a MIDiA post with the video) this was Marshmello appearing as a Fortnite character, on stage with his music playing. Meanwhile Fortnite players moved around the ‘concert venue’ showing off their dance moves – all of which of course had been purchased in app with Fortnite VBucks.

(Click the image to link through to the MIDiA blog which includes a video clip)

For my son and his friends this was every bit a shared live experience, each of them talking to each other via Xbox Live and dancing with each other on screen. In-game live experiences like this are nothing new, but it may just be that we are beginning to get to a tipping point in shared gaming experiences for Gen Z that will shape their entertainment expectations for years to come. Tweens and teens are already spending more time socializing via social media than real world contact, connected gaming is adding to that mix. Whereas most games played with friends have been first and foremost a shared gaming experience, Fortnite is teaching a new generation that the game itself is merely a platform for shared experiences. Meanwhile Marshmello gets to ‘play’ to potentially millions of new fans right across the globe.

Welcome to the future of live entertainment…..or rather, welcome to one of the futures of live entertainment.