Real-time streaming players intensify entertainment race

Youku's Topic Studio program brings newsmakers to debate current affairs. One episode features a blind crab tasting. [Photo/China Daily]

Music companies' increasing interest and confidence in online live shows has also fueled video websites' growth ambitions.

Since they require viewers' ID information, they provide essential data for marketing analyses, such as age, hometown and favorite songs, EE-Media's music director Shen Yongge tells the Shanghai-based business magazine CBNweekly.

Hunan TV's streaming site Mango TV recently broadcast a concert by teen idol Hua Chenyu, who rose to fame via the Super Boys TV talent show Hunan TV and EE-Media coproduced. Online tickets reportedly sold out in a day.

Over 120,000 fans watched the concert online－10 times the number of physically present viewers. Ticket sales for each mode respectively equaled more than 4 million yuan.

Mango TV also plans to broadcast a live concert by Chinese-Malaysian singer and new reality show star Gary Chaw that will be available only to its VIP users, new media platform Entertainment Capital reports.

A mini concert by "China's godfather of rock" Cui Jian is the most recent success.

While 3,000 fans packed Beijing Workers' Stadium in October, more than 600,000 watched the performance on Tencent Video.

Tencent's efforts to use superstars' live concert series to increase traffic have paid off.

Hong Kong pop star Karen Mok's concert in Taipei had a phenomenal opening on Tencent Video on Sept 27. The company reports it attracted 500,000 clicks in an hour.

And 1 million mainland fans watched Taiwan A-lister A-mei's Taipei concert, which debuted her new album's songs, a month earlier.

Tencent is considering finding sponsors to offer such online live shows for free, Tencent Video's music channel director Feng Tao tells CBNweekly.