Chinese Music Entertainment Giants Taihe Music Group (TMG) and Baidu Music Merge

The two C-pop providers create a platform to serve the evolving demands of today's music listeners 

BEIJING, Dec. 8, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Taihe Music Group (TMG) officially announced on December 3rd that it will merge in its entirety with Baidu's music platform -- Baidu Music. The merger will build a borderless, cross-industry, cross-platform music service that is the next step in the evolution of how music is consumed by Chinese listeners. The merger follows on the heels of the merger of Taihe Rye Music, Ocean Butterflies Music and Touch Music Publishing that resulted in the creation of the music provider.

As the only such provider serving the 5 major markets for Chinese popular music or C-pop, TMG owns the copyrights of 700,000 revenue-producing songs. TMG has long-term collaborative agreements with over 100 businesses both within China and in many countries around the world, including copyright licensees, music talent agencies, entertainment marketers and concert impresarios. The music provider has become the world's largest service agency for C-pop after quickly accumulating a 50% share of the Chinese music market.

Baidu Music, one of the world's largest Chinese music search platforms, its brand and services will remain unchanged following the merger with TMG. Baidu Music will leverage its user base and online music products, as well as its big data mining ability, to provide strong support for the new entity.

Qian Shimu, TMG CEO, said the merger with Baidu Music is a significant breakthrough in terms of what a collaboration between the traditional player and an internet giant should look like. The foundation of the partnership is based on Taihe's strength and status in the music industry. The decision by the content provider to merge with the giant music platform is aimed at integrating the music industry's upstream and downstream resources in order to build a transparent copyright-and performer-centric user service platform and create a more prosperous music ecosystem that brings together a massive amount of content and several platform partners under one roof.

TMG plans to focus on further diversifying the music library and other aspects of the business, add more value to the music industry as a whole, look for the right combination that maximizes business value without devaluing music and the enjoyment of music to the listener, ultimately giving the creative musical artist even more reason to contribute to this exciting and growing industry.