THE internet has severely disrupted the Hong Kong canto-pop industry, once a multi-billion dollar market driven by stars such as Alan Tam, Leslie Cheung and Anita Mui among others.

The South China Morning Post reported that records sales had plummeted from HK$1.6 billion (RM880 million) during its heyday in 1998 to a mere HK$200 million today.

According to industry estimates, the music sales market share for canto-pop had also fallen from 50% to 15%.

Voice Entertainment chief executive Herman Ho attributed the industry’s sharp decline to a lack of copyright protection on popular social media platforms such as YouTube, Youku and Baidu.

Ho, an industry veteran of over three decades, said many in the industry have lost their jobs and records sale had shrunk as many prefer to stream or download their music, paid or otherwise.

He said records by one of canto-pop’s many stars can easily sell 100,000 copies in the 1980’s but this is impossible these days.

Ho said some of the best new canto-pop talents are also moving to larger markets such as China as the genre loses ground against K-pop and western pop.

He said some artists have also taken to performing their greatest hits in mandarin to appeal to a larger mainland China audience.

However, Ho also noted that die hard canto-pop fans who followed their idols through their heydays are now mostly in their 30s or 40s, with enough spending power and willingness to fork out good money to see their idols perform live.

For example, he said, Faye Wong’s 2016 concert tickets were selling for between CN¥1,800 (RM1,140) and CN¥7,800, but all 8,900 tickets got sold out within minutes.

Ho said, however, that newcomers were having a difficult time gaining exposure and they were not hardworking enough to assume the mantle of canto-pop giants from the days of old. – July 22, 2017.