Five Major Western Labels Enter Taiwan Through Local Distributors

Source: After Transnational Music Conglomerates Entered Taiwan: Starting from the Creative Autonomy of Record ProducersDate: 2010Author: Lee Ya-wen

From the 1980s onward, the five major transnational music conglomerates — PolyGram, EMI, BMG, Warner, and Sony — gradually extended their reach into Taiwan. In the early 1980s, transnational music groups primarily entered Taiwan through licensing arrangements. From the late 1980s onward, the transnational groups’ strategy for entering Taiwan shifted toward joint ventures with local representatives, mergers and acquisitions, or establishing entirely new subsidiaries to engage with the Taiwanese popular music market (Hsiao Ping and Chou Chao-ping, 2000). As transnational music groups entered the Taiwanese record market armed with abundant capital and operating logic, they exerted a considerable impact on Taiwan’s music industry. Hsieh Chi-jen (2006) notes that transnational music groups introduced a highly rational system — from artist selection and song selection to media marketing, all operating within an industry of specialized division of labor — that, in the pursuit of economic efficiency, gradually pushed popular music toward standardization and homogenization, squeezing the space available for creative expression.

Tags

External Links

• Film, Television, and Song Art: Advancing into Asia (CommonWealth Magazine)
• Under the Tides of Globalization and Regionalization: An Analysis of Taiwanese Record Companies’ Mandarin Song Production Strategies (Hsiao Ping, Chou Chao-ping)
• The Development and Evolution of Taiwan’s Music and Entertainment Companies (Part III) (Pop Music Historical Notes)
• Exposing the True Nature of the Transnational Record “Industry” (Chien Miao-ju)
• A Brief Discussion on the Pressing Runs of Laser Discs (KKnews)