European Media: Media news you missed?

Research evidence excerpt

European Media: Media news you missed?

iness delivered "another quarter of

triple-digit year-over-year growth" in Q1 2026. That live/advertising/merch push is already

showing up in the numbers: non-membership "music related services" revenue rose 28.0% YoY

to RMB 1.94 billion (USD $282 million) in the quarter. The strategic logic is explicitly to become

"AI-proof": Pang warned that unauthorized AI-generated content is a headwind for subscription

growth and argued that "original human creativity and premium music IPs are the ultimate

differentiators," which is why TME is building an integrated ecosystem that monetises IP

through experiences like live performances. In that framing, concerts are the scarce product

that cannot be replicated by algorithms, making live events a defensible growth engine as AI

increases the abundance (and dilution risk) of recorded music.

Our take: The direct competition risk to Live Nation and particularly CTS Eventim is still small

today. Eventim's exposure to the Asian live music market is very limited with Eventim Live Asia.

What it does underline is the that live music should continue to be a relative AI safe haven. Part

of the bottleneck is the control of the content through promoters. Companies like Spotify

pushing into the market by buying up promoters has so far seemed far fetched to us (given the

low margin profile of live events promotion). If, however, Spotify would follow suit to Tencent

Music's adventures into live music, we would start to see a more meaningful threat to vertically

integrated live music companies like CTS Eventim (something which we still put a low likelihood

on today).

Chinese execs concerned about dilution from AI music

Music Business Worldwide, 12/05/26