Photo Credit: WMG

Warner Music is betting big on virtual artists in China, where it’s partnered with an avatar-focused company called Dream Maker. Meanwhile, the major is also looking “to take Bengali music to a much wider audience” under an SVF Entertainment tie-up.

Warner Music China just recently unveiled the Dream Maker deal, which came to light in a regional press release. Letting this release, published via Macau Business, take the wheel for a moment, the virtual artist specialist has plenty of experience under its belt – to the tune of creating “over 3,000 singers” thus far.

All told, those avatars’ videos have racked up north of 10 billion cumulative views across all platforms, per the same source. Dream Maker’s most popular artist, KONG, is said to have topped Douyin’s virtual category in both livestream viewership and revenue.

(KONG’s presence is even catching the interest of brands like Cetaphil, which appeared in what seems to be an official Weibo clip featuring the avatar artist.)

On the “video” and “livestream” fronts, the acts are said to emphasize one-on-one interactions with fans as opposed to simply making tracks available to stream.

(Evidence suggests that this model is a winner in the Chinese market, but it hasn’t fared as well elsewhere; Sony Music Japan in 2024 shuttered its Prism Project “virtual talent management agency” due to evolving “industry trends.”)

This leads to another relative positive in an era when non-musicians are commanding more and more of the spotlight: Behind each “virtual artist is a real human performer” using motion-capture technology during livestreams and more, the release indicated.

What, then, will the Warner Music China and Dream Maker union look like in practice? At the top level, the latter company is rather unsurprisingly poised to benefit from the major’s production, promotion, and distribution capabilities.

Additionally, the pact could serve as something of a bridge to China’s quick-growing – but difficult-to-crack – music sector for Warner Music, whose artists are reportedly set to appear in the virtual acts’ own releases.

(Although adjacent to virtual-artist offerings, Tencent Music’s AI-powered covers and features are helping a number of catalog releases reach younger listeners, execs previously indicated in more words.)

It’ll certainly be worth keeping an eye out for these projects; after scoring multiple high-profile agreements with domestic talent in 2023 and 2024, Warner Music China acknowledged parting with a bit of market share.

Internationally, however, the major yesterday confirmed Hong Kong-born Gareth.T’s status as “one of WMG’s top five globally streamed acts, a first for a Chinese artist in the company,” owing to the success of “Glass.”

In the bigger picture, Rthyms.Life-partnered Warner Music’s wider buildout plans are likewise in motion in India, where the major today kicked off a Bengali expansion by partnering with SVF Entertainment.

With more than 1,400 films – and all manner of valuable soundtracks – under its belt, 31-year-old SVF is now set to leverage Warner Music’s global reach en route to bringing “Bengali music to a much wider audience,” co-founder Mahendra Soni said.

“For three decades, SVF has been committed to building platforms for Bengali artists, music and storytelling,” the SVF director stated. “As audiences increasingly discover regional music beyond linguistic and geographic boundaries, this partnership with Warner Music India gives us an opportunity to take Bengali music to a much wider audience.

“Together, we can create new opportunities for our artists and repertoire while continuing to support the creative community behind them,” Soni concluded.