Jack Ma who loves to sing, Ali music without singing

Veteran musicians Song Ke and Gao Xiaosong both quit Beijing Alibaba Music Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Alibaba Music).

According to Tianyancha data, on May 5, Ali Music underwent a business change, Song Ke and Gao Xiaosong withdrew from Ali Music and no longer held shares. Ali Music was registered and established in February 2016 with a registered capital of 10 million yuan. Gao Xiaosong and Song Ke have subscribed for 500,000 yuan respectively. Currently, Hangzhou Ali Venture Capital Co., Ltd. is a wholly-owned shareholder of Ali Music.

Song Ke is Gao Xiaosong’s senior brother, and both are alumni of Tsinghua University. They have known each other for many years and have a strong personal relationship. In 1996, the two co-founded the independent music label Maitian and developed it into the record company Taihe Maitian. In 2012, they joined Evergrande Music together. After a short period of three years, the two joined Ali together. When joining, Gao Xiaosong once said: Ali Music will be the last stop for him and Song Ke as music professional managers.

Gao Xiaosong became famous at a young age. He is a songwriter and producer. He has also directed several films and is widely known. Song Ke Yin has appeared on the jury seat of “Super Girl” and “Happy Boys” many times, and has gradually entered the public eye, and is called “the record industry trader” by the media.

On May 9, a reporter from Times Weekly called Song Ke about withdrawing from the list of shareholders of Alibaba Music. Song Ke was reluctant to talk about this, only saying that “exit is exit”, and did not disclose the reason for the exit.

Parting ways at last stop

Song Ke and Gao Xiaosong withdrew, and there were already signs.

In January 2018, Song Ke stepped down as the director and general manager of Ali Music, Yang Weidong was airborne, and Gao Xiaosong still served as the legal representative and chairman. In October 2019, Zhu Shunyan succeeded Gao Xiaosong as the legal representative and chairman of Alibaba Music. In March 2021, Gao Xiaosong stepped down as a director.

In January 2022, Hangzhou Zhenglong Culture and Art Co., Ltd. established by Gao Xiaosong and Song Ke in 2017 was also cancelled. According to Tianyancha data, as of May 9, 2022, the “golden partners” who have cooperated for more than 20 years have no business connection.

In the last station of Evergrande Music, Song Ke served as the director and general manager, and Gao Xiaosong served as the director and music director of Evergrande Music. At the beginning of taking office, Song Ke described the three major development directions of Evergrande Music in the future: copyright acquisition and management, concerts and artist management. Not long after its establishment, Evergrande Music acquired more than 3,500 song copyrights from multiple record companies in one fell swoop. During their tenure at Evergrande Music, Song Ke and Gao Xiaosong also opened the Evergrande Starlight Music Festival all over the country.

In 2013, Song Ke disclosed in an interview with a reporter from Times Weekly: “We have made a profit this year, reaching tens of millions, mainly from copyright and cooperation with TV stations.” Song Ke also said that in the future Evergrande Music The number of festivals will continue to increase, and the number of signed artists will gradually increase. At that time, most of the artists participating in the tour will be from Evergrande Music.

In the end, the two chose to leave Evergrande Music. “It is not a failure for both parties, and each has achieved the requirements.” Song Ke talked about the reasons for leaving Evergrande Music in an interview, “As for leaving, I think it is mainly because of Xiaosong and I’s choice – content or platform. .”

In January 2015, Jack Ma invited Song Ke and Gao Xiaosong to talk about their views on the Internet music industry at the Taiji Temple. Song Ke believes that the output value of China’s music industry is 200 billion yuan a year, which is larger than that of the film industry, but only less than 10% of the share is Internet-based. “In the next few years, if we have the ability to move the 200 billion yuan to the Internet, even if it is 30%, then Ali Music will be a platform of 60 billion yuan per year, and this is valuable.”

Jack Ma, Song Ke and Gao Xiaosong soon reached a consensus that Ali Music became the last stop of Song Ke and Gao Xiaosong’s “professional music managers”. Song Ke once said, “(Ali is the last stop) is not a rhetoric. I really think so. One is that we said that in the last chat with Mr. Ma. We are also willing to do it, and Mr. Ma also thinks so.”

Now, Song Ke and Gao Xiaosong’s “last stop” journey has come to an end.

Ali Music Dream

Jack Ma’s love for music is obvious to all.

Alibaba Music is Alibaba’s third largest layout in the field of cultural entertainment after movies and digital entertainment. It is reported that Jack Ma has always wanted to establish his own ecology in the music field and use the Internet to make some reforms in the music industry.

In early 2015, Alibaba integrated Xiami Music and Tiantiandongting to establish Alibaba Music Group. According to data from Bida Consulting in 2014, in the market share of digital music platforms in China, Tiantiandongting accounted for 17.3%, Xiami Music accounted for 4.6%, and the combined market share reached 21.9%.

In July 2015, Song Ke and Gao Xiaosong joined Ali Music as CEO and chairman respectively, dreaming of becoming the world’s largest music platform, connecting music production, distribution and consumption. In December of the same year, well-known host He Jiong also joined Ali Music as chief content officer.

Talent is shining, but Ali Music is gradually entering a difficult situation.

In 2015, major music platforms started a copyright war.

Xiami Music and Tiantiandongting are two major music platforms under Alibaba Music. The former follows the route of “professional musicians” and the latter follows the route of “mass users”. Whether it is from the perspective of copyright cost or company strategy, Alibaba Music needs to learn from Xiami Music and Tiantian Music. Choose one of Tiantian’s beautiful voices and establish it as the core product.

At the beginning of 2016, Ali Music established “Ali Planet” on the basis of TiantianjingTing, which is positioned as a pan-entertainment platform that includes various services such as fan economy and music product transactions. In December of that year, Ali Planet, which had invested a lot of resources, was closed, and Ali Music, which had not completed KPIs, put the pressure back on Xiami Music. However, Xiami Music, which has no resources to invest for a long time, is no longer able to shoulder the heavy responsibility.

In September 2016, Song Ke became the chairman of Alibaba Music, Gao Xiaosong became the chairman of the Alibaba Entertainment Strategy Committee, and Yang Weidong, the president of Heyi Group (Youku Tudou), was the CEO of Alibaba Music. In the following years, Ali Music has become increasingly marginalized, and the daily activity of Xiami Music has also declined. According to the QuestMobile report, in December 2020, the number of monthly active users of Xiami was only 10.04 million, which was still declining compared to the same period last year. In early 2021, Xiami Music announced its closure.

Tencent is taking advantage of the momentum in the music field. In July 2016, China Music Group and Tencent Group, which own music platforms such as Kugou and Kuwo, announced the merger of digital music businesses to form Tencent Music Group. Tencent Music has already landed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2018. In 2021, its annual revenue has exceeded 31.2 billion yuan, and its net profit has exceeded 3.2 billion yuan.