Korea and Japan aren't the only countries in Asia with pop music markets, you know. The problem for China is that demand for its own homegrown Mandopop and Cantopop (Mandarin and Cantonese-language pop music, respectively) is not nearly as high at home as that for its more popular Korean neighbors and the music it produces. Chinese web giant Tencent stands to make a huge profit by entering a deal with Korean music label YG Entertainment—home to stars such as Psy, Big Bang and 2NE1—for sole distribution of some of Korea's biggest acts online to the world's largest population (from The Hollywood Reporter).
"YG Entertainment has a talented portfolio of artists and this strategic partnership will instantly offer Korean fans in China a stream of high-quality music, songs and MVs [music videos]," said Tencent vice president Dowson Tong in a statement. "We look forward to launching exclusive YG content across our extensive services and raising our users' experience to whole new levels."
It's a move similar to the deals that make Vevo the major provider of official music videos to services such as YouTube. The difference for YG is that China takes a much more hands-on approach to moderating content on video services such as YouTube, which helps prevent illegal versions of songs —which don't result in royalty payments to performers—from being posted (but then again outright piracy in China is out of control).
Other hot products in China are Korean soap operas and fashions stemming from K-Pop. Tencent can't do much about the clothes but be on the lookout for deals with Korean television producers with regards to streaming rights.
