Features
Now Streaming Regularly
News site Yibada reports that the Chinese Internet company Tencent collaborated with Korean content distributor Cantara Global to make the streamed concerts possible.
They have occurred at least once a month starting in February. Performers have included Girls’ Generation, whose concert at the Wapop Hall in Seoul was watched live by 1.57 million people in China. Other concerts featured T-ara, Sistar and 4Minute, each attracting about 1 million viewers.
Two more concerts featuring Girl’s Day and f(x) are scheduled for later this month. Tencent offers the concerts for free, but says it will start charging fees once the number of viewers reaches a certain level. The first live-streaming experiment in China took place in August 2014, when singer-songwriter Wang Feng’s Beijing show at the Bird’s Nest Stadium was streamed online for 30 yuan ($4.70). About 75,000 people paid the fee to watch the show online.
More companies in China have since become interested in live streaming, as concert ticket prices tend to price many Chinese consumers out of the market.