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Business News Deals Digital Labels & Publishers
Universal Music Japan buys into Line Music
By Chris Cooke | Published on Thursday 4 June 2015
Universal Music in Japan has bought into Line Music, which presumably means the major will be participating in the new streaming service when it goes live there.
The digital market is yet to really gain momentum in Japan, the world’s second biggest recorded music market, partly because CD sales held up there so much longer than in most other countries. But with CD revenues now in decline in Japan too, the country’s music industry really needs to boost its digital income, though most of the big streaming music brands in the US and Europe have as yet found it hard to get licensing deals from the Japanese labels.
This is partly because of attempts by the big four Japanese record companies – so the Japanese divisions of Universal and Warner, the standalone Sony Music Japan and local major Avex – to control the digital market themselves.
Though in the last year or so, Universal and Warner seem to have been pushing for the Japanese industry to let the global streaming platforms in, while Sony and Avex have been busy going into business with messaging app Line with a view to launching a new streaming service over which the record companies would have some control.
Despite the usual desire for consensus in the Japanese industry, for a time it looked like Universal and Warner would be hold outs on the new Line Music venture, but earlier today Line said that the mega-major was now on board as a shareholder in its music service, which presumably means the firm’s catalogue will be available when the new streaming service goes live.
As previously reported, Line has already added music streaming to its network in Thailand with a monthly subscription under $2. But it remains to be see what Line Music looks like when it launches in Japan, where the small number of streaming services already active have had to reduce functionality in order to secure label approval.
Premium subscribers can check out our recent review of the Japanese digital market online using the password published in the most recent edition of the CMU Digest.
