Video streaming has fundamentally changed the entertainment industry, most noticeably in verticals such as live sports, VoD shows, E-commerce, gaming, and live concerts. Case in point: Andy Lau, a famous singer from Hong Kong, live streamed a two-hour concert in 2022 to an audience of 350 million people, which is larger than the entire population of the United States! It’s no coincidence that a massive event like this occurred in Asia; both in terms of audience size and behavior as well as in accessible streaming platforms and innovation, this part of the world is fertile ground for large-scale live streams. This blog ‘pops off’ with a look into music live-streamed across Asia (K-Pop, J-Pop and C-Pop), and we will also explore innovations such as multiview, flexible ad insertions and E-Commerce that streaming services use to drive up viewership and engagement. Lastly, we will examine some of the technical challenges of live streaming concerts, focusing on how Tiledmedia can help optimize cross-platform playout quality, offer true multiview streaming, insert personalized ads, and enable E-Commerce extensions.
Crowd surfing
Even before streaming music became widespread, Asia was an interesting market for the music industry. Japan has been the second biggest music market for decades now, and Tokyo is a must-stop location for the world’s most popular artists when they are on a world tour. In addition to the popularity of Western artists, homegrown music in Asian countries is very successful and it reaches large audiences around the world. Well-known examples of this are K-Pop from Korea, J-Pop from Japan and C-Pop from China; these three music genres have a combined revenue that is well over 10 billion USD a year. K-pop broke ground by having large entertainment agencies like Hybe, SM Entertainment, JYP Entertainment and YG Entertainment forming pop groups and promoting them outside of Korea. The Korean government has an active policy of pushing K-Pop overseas and spends significant money to support the industry. During the last decade, groups are gradually singing more of their lyrics in English, to appeal to an international audience. Well-known K-Pop groups include BTS, Blackpink and Twice. While J-Pop and C-Pop are still more focused on their (large) home markets, they are now becoming more popular overseas as well.
The means of distribution is important for popularizing a certain sound across Asia and the world. The advent of streaming meant that record labels had to reinvent their business models, and artists had to diversify their income sources away from traditional record sales. Consumers gradually shifted from pirating platforms and adopted the principle that streaming music would either contain ads or be ad-free with a subscription, though piracy remains a problem to this day. The Covid pandemic put this trend into overdrive, as artists suddenly could not tour anymore, so in an attempt to cater to fans and financiers alike, many artists turned to video streaming as a lifeline. Some of these efforts were very successful indeed, as a number of online concerts that the K-Pop band BTS performed illustrates. Millions of people were willing to pay a 26-36 US dollar fee to access the concert. After the lockdowns and restrictions ended, in-person music concerts made a big comeback, but video streaming as a revenue vertical is now well established. In Asia, plenty of streaming platforms provide this service: Naver Now in Korea, Tencent Video and Douyin (TikTok) in China, Youtube, U-Next in Japan, and many more. The format on these platforms includes live streams and VoD material of concerts, as well as user-generated content captured at concerts. In addition, live streams sometimes have extensions to web browsers. Examples are social media platforms like Weibo and WeChat in China where individual and institutional users can live stream directly to their timelines in these apps, so that their friends and followers can follow the action very easily.
A look behind the curtains
Streaming live concerts has obvious benefits: it’s cheaper than buying a ticket to a physical concert, and the streams can be watched from anywhere, which means expanded reach. Video streaming also gives viewers the best angles to watch the artist. Getting high-quality video and audio to millions of fans requires a robust streaming workflow. Dealing with sudden peaks in audience demands the most of a transcoding, CDN and video player setup, and failure leads to buffering, stream outages, and other quality issues. The Tyson vs. Paul fight on Netflix in November 2024 is a famous example of this. ‘Soundproofing’ a streaming platform against a surge of traffic could be a hurdle for companies to organize popular events, as this comes with significant cost. Especially companies that are not dealing with many millions of users every day see this as a risk, as they don’t have the opportunity to test and iterate their setup compared to the biggest platforms. Moreover, ensuring good quality playout across multiple devices and platforms will also produce a headache for tech teams working on streaming services. Many multi-platform streaming services have a tangle of platform-dependent code in a doomed attempt to achieve feature parity across all targeted devices. The potential for additional revenue by supporting more platforms can be lost if the Quality of Service is lacking, which could lead to decline in viewership and PR damage.
Future performances
Multiview, dynamic ads & E-commerce
In the case of K-Pop, J-Pop, and C-Pop, the most successful artists team up in groups, which is a fundamental part of interacting with their fans. Each group member has their own persona and speaks to different sections within the group’s fanbase. Therefore, giving viewers of streamed video content the option to follow their favourite group member throughout a concert is a real value driver. Multiview streaming gives control to fans gives control to fans, allowing them to curate their own content, and provides a way for streaming platforms to stand out against the fierce competition in the market. Several platforms are advertising multiview in various forms for streaming concerts, such as NaverTV, Weverse and Youtube. These platforms are part of a growing list of streaming services that want to empower their viewers. Other innovations that streaming platforms can consider for the live concerts use case are dynamic and personalized ad insertions. Pre- and mid-roll ads that fully obscure the content are typically perceived as intrusive. Examples of less intrusive methods are ads inserted as PiPs (picture-in-picture) and ads that appear when a stream is paused, which can help keep more viewers engaged. Lastly, E-commerce is a huge industry in Asia; its tech-savvy population has embraced online shopping, and streaming platforms in Asia are jumping on this trend by enabling extensions to E-commerce vendors when viewers are on their streaming platforms. The key here is to give viewers a chance to browse for products, yet still stay in the player app and watch the video stream. This requires the interface between the streaming and the E-commerce platform to be as seamless as possible.
Watch your favorite band member with multiview
A Video Player as the fifth Beatle
Now that we’ve had a brief look at the popularity, operations and innovations of streaming music concerts in Asia, let’s further examine some challenges and solutions to further develop this use case. As mentioned earlier in the article, fans are willing to spend money to see live content of artists, but they do demand Quality of Service. The challenges raised in this blog: ensuring QoS, dealing with peak traffic, cross-platform support, multiview and ad-insertions, can be tackled by using a versatile and robust video player in the streaming service (though dealing with peak traffic requires other measures too). This is where Tiledmedia Player can greatly benefit streaming service providers; its streaming performance across platforms is consistent and best in class, Tiledmedia Player is tailor-made for Multiview streaming, flexible ad-insertions and seamless E-commerce extensions, enabling platforms to stand out from the competition and increase viewer engagement. Thirdly, Tiledmedia makes business and operations easier for streaming services by fully owning the Player stack, enabling speedy launch times for service and features, and the ability to quickly find and solve playout errors.
Tiledmedia recognizes the ongoing trends in the entertainment industry. With its current customer base across the world (USA, China, India, Europe), Tiledmedia aims to be a partner for streaming services in Asia and globally, giving fans the best and most engaging experiences wherever they are.
Want to learn more about our solutions and how we can help you create the best streaming experience? Contact us at [email protected]
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