A deal struck earlier this month between IODA, the San Francisco-based global leader in digital distribution, marketing, and technology solutions for the independent music and film industry, and R2G, the Beijing-based leading digital music distribution company in China, will make Cornwall-based independent record label and music publishing company Aardvark Music's catalogue available in China for the first time.
IODA handles the Aardvark catalogue for international digital retail. Aardvark Music’s catalogue, based upon releases from its subsidiary record labels Aardvark Records and Aardvark Dance, will be available on R2G’s Wawawa Music store at www.wa3.cn. The digital music store is the largest in China. The partnership between IODA and R2G represents the first time foreign independents have had a robust legal conduit to the burgeoning Chinese market for full length downloads. International selling and chart topping Aardvark artists such as Yahel, Eric M, Jeff Alford, Little Spitfire and Zetan Spore are now available to purchase in China through the deal.
China's Internet users, 85% of whom listen to music online, have until now had to contend with the limited selection of pirated music available via online search engines like Baidu. A recent survey by Beijing-based research group Music 2.0 (http://blogs.music20.org/music20/) found that one-third of Chinese music consumers are willing to pay for music downloads. In the study, consumers cited their current inability to find non-mainstream music and their desire for better niche and foreign music discovery tools as chief among the reasons they’re willing to pay for music online.
Accordingly, Wawawa, with the largest catalogue of legal music available in China, is keenly focused on music discovery, convenient access and attractive pricing for the local market. Created exclusively for mainland Chinese consumers, Wawawa delivers all songs in DRM-free mp3 format via a monthly subscription plan; all downloads are permanently owned by the customer – even beyond their subscription period. Additionally, the service allows current subscribers to stream their downloaded music from any location with an Internet connection. This feature provides convenient access for the 40% of Chinese Internet users who access the Web from Internet cafes.
"We are making great independent music easy for the Chinese music fan to discover and buy through our partnership with R2G and the Wawawa store," said Kevin Arnold, founder and CEO of IODA. "Labels like Aardvark who had interested fans in China, but no real means to feed and grow that fan base made it clear that the time was right to open up distribution in China for the independent music community. This is an important first step in levelling the playing field in what could one day be one of the largest digital music markets in the world."
This opportunity has not been lost on Aardvark's directors. Aardvark's website, where music fans can find out about their favourite artists and listen to full audio tracks online, achieves around 3,000 unique visitors per day. Approximately 23% of that daily traffic comes from Mainland China and Hong Kong.
"Aardvark has waited four years for the opportunity to sell its music in China," said Aardvark’s Head of Communications, Alex di Savoia. "It has been four years filled with frustration, knowing we had artists who were popular with younger generations of Chinese and not being able to provide music to them in their own currency. The deal between our digital aggregator partner IODA and R2G allows us to achieve this goal."
Expanding music tastes in and beyond Beijing and Shanghai have created an enthusiastic audience in recent years for music festivals like Beijing Pop, Midi Music & the Yue Festival. International artists have more opportunities than ever to connect with Chinese fans, and fans for the first time have access to a wide variety of international music downloads at compelling prices through Wawawa.
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For more information regarding this press release,
please contact Alex di Savoia: Tel +44 (0) 1326 376 013 or
email alex@aardvarkrecords.co.uk or visit www.aardvarkrecords.co.uk
About R2G
R2G provides the leading centralized music distribution platform in China with a transparent licensing and monitoring system. Its unprecedented approach in the distribution of digital music in has provided Content Providers with more efficient and reliable delivery of music content to the marketplace with proper and transparent revenue accounting mechanisms in place while protecting the interests of copyright owners. With licensing deals across more than 200 Service Providers combined with rights from more than 50 Content Providers, and as the strategic partner to the Music Copyright Society of China (MCSC) and China AudioVideo Copyright Association (CAVCA), R2G covers almost 70% of publishing rights in the market. For more information about R2G, please contact: Mathew Daniel,
tel: +8610-84584369 Ext 8404 email: mathew.daniel@r2g.net
About IODA
IODA, the Independent Online Distribution Alliance, is the industry-leading digital distribution company for the global independent music community. IODA provides comprehensive services to record labels, physical distributors, and artists, including license negotiations; media encoding and metadata management; and royalty payment administration and reporting. The company also offers promotional support through a dedicated marketing division and through the IODA Promonet (www.iodapromonet.com), a promotional distribution network that provides qualified podcasts, blogs, and other promotional sites with access to pre-cleared, legal music and other promotional assets from IODA’s labels. Founded in 2003, IODA represents a rapidly expanding roster of over a million tracks from thousands of independent labels around the globe. IODA was named one of FORTUNE magazine’s 25 Breakout Companies for 2005. The company’s website is www.iodalliance.com.
For more information about IODA, please contact: Heather Staples,
tel: +1 415-789-5550 email: jhs@iodalliance.com
About Aardvark Music
Established in 2001, Aardvark Music Ltd is the parent company of Aardvark Records and Aardvark Dance. Collectively, Aardvark is one of the UK's most creative music companies in the UK with an international reach disproportionate to its small size. Its staunchly independent stance and pioneering spirit have produced a string of well-received releases worldwide, spanning a variety of music genres: dance, pop and rock. Aardvark Dance’s current hit-making writers and producers include: EricM, Zetan Spore, Thabani, Everett Young, Yahel and Jeff Alford.
Aardvark started life as a local record label handling a variety of Cornwall-based artists. It has since grown into an international label with a network of in-house licensing agents and A&R spread around the globe. It continues to rack up a series of music industry firsts. Aardvark was one of the first record labels to use podcasting. It was one of the first label groups to support internet radio. Other firsts include: providing music videos to YouTube, Google Video, Singingfool, ROO TV and a host of other online music video entertainment wesbites; providing full tracks on MySpace, Reverb Nation, Bebo and Last.fm; setting up a blog to share thoughts about music industry developments and news; and using widgets for people to share its music and its videos with their friends. Recent audio content provision deals such as the one struck with the gaming company Audio-Surf, is a continuation of its ethos. |
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 Additional Information
 IODA
R2G
wawawa download store
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