Subscriptions Growth at Tencent Music Fails to Offset Other Woes

Ed Meza @edmezavar Coming off a year of major international growth, Paris-based animation giant Cyber Group Studios is presenting a wide-ranging lineup of new and returning shows at this year’s Unifrance Rendez-Vous in the French seaside town of Biarritz. Among Cyber Group’s current high-profile titles is the new super-powered kid comedy series “50/50 Heroes,” which has sold to ITV in the U.K. and Discovery in Latin America. Commissioned by France Televisions and Disney, “50/50 Heroes” follows the high jinks of Mo and Sam, a half-brother and sister duo, aged 11 and 9, who share super powers. Cyber Group has been expanding its global operations over the past year with a number of major acquisitions, partnerships and joint ventures that have resulted in a number of new projects.

box office, there is a near-term question mark about what will happen next: Will recovery stall due to a paucity of Hollywood tentpole movies? Or will international theatrical decouple and find new drivers to maintain the momentum? The good news is that most of the international market’s top territories are now fully open and operating without significant restrictions on seating capacity. These include the U.K. and Ireland, Japan, France, Germany, Spain, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Mexico and Brazil. The smaller number of territories still laboring under restrictions nevertheless include some valuable ones: China, Turkey, Argentina, Hong Kong and Russia.

EXCLUSIVE: Tennis great Michael Chang, who became the youngest winner of a major tournament singles championship when he beat Ivan Lendl in the 1989 French Open at age 17, will be the subject of a ’30 for 30′ documentary by ESPN Films.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief South Korea’s leading entertainment group CJ ENM has appointed Steve W. Chung as its global chief growth officer. He will be based in Los Angeles. Previously, Chung served as chief growth officer at Fox Corporation. Prior to that Chung was the founder and CEO of Frankly, a publicly-traded media tech company based in San Francisco. He was also a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and an executive producer in China.  Chung currently serves as a board member of the non-profit National Asia Pacific Center on Aging (NAPCA) and received his B.A from Harvard College and an M.B.A. from Stanford University.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Smart phone usage is key to music listeners in parts of East Asia, but only a minority of users are committed subscribers to streaming services. That apparent contradiction may explain the rise of mini-subscriptions in the region. “Some 81% of music listeners in Malaysia use smartphones as their go-to music listening devices in a typical month, yet only 31% of music streamers in Malaysia pay for a streaming subscription,” says new report from consultancy firm Luminate. The firm’s latest Music 360 Study examines music consumption habits and preferences in a selection of Asia-Pacific markets, including South Korea, Japan, Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, and Malaysia, but excluding China, India, Singapore and Australia. 

Former Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev has died at age 91, according to Russian news agencies. His cause of death was not immediately released, but Gorbachev's office had said earlier that he was undergoing treatment at the Central Clinical Hospital in Moscow, according to The Associated Press.Gorbachev served as the eighth and final General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1985 until 1991.

EXCLUSIVE: The HBO Max series Warrior is adding 10 actors to the cast of Warrior for the show’s third season, including Telly Leung and Kevin Otto, in recurring roles.

EastEnders' Kelsey Calladine-Smith has shared emotional snaps with her co-stars following her exit from the soap. The young actress posted a series of behind the scene images on social media along with the caption: "My Eastenders experience has brought me nothing but smiles !!!" Her character Jada Lennox can be seen posing next to show royalties James Bye (Martin Fowler), Danny Dyer (Mick Carter), Steve McFadden (Phil Mitchell), Kellie Bright (Linda Carter), and Letitia Dean (Sharon Watts) as well as various crew members.

Clerks III is being released in theaters next month and Kevin Smith celebrated the new film at the L.A. premiere!

Don’t Doubt Your Vibe‘ two years on from the track’s release.The Tesla and SpaceX CEO first revealed the song in January 2020, somewhat cementing the idea that music was another of his pursuits after releasing his debut single ‘RIP Harambe’ in 2019.Now, ‘Don’t Doubt Your Vibe’ comes with a music video that doubles up as an advert for  Tesla, featuring Musk’s progressive house cut beneath shots of the company’s latest car models, Y and 3.The video was produced by Tesla’s China team, which prepped the cars and taught them to program their own lighting to put on a light display in time with the music. A post shared by Tesla (@teslamotors) ‘Don’t Doubt Your Vibe’ was Musk’s first foray into production too, helmed at LA’s Emo G Records, and features vocals by the billionaire himself.The music video was captioned “vibes” with no further information about further music.When Musk released ‘Don’t Doubt Your Vibe’, he temporarily changed his Twitter name to E “D” M, taking to the social platform to promote the track and inform fans that he was responsible for both writing and performing the lyrics.He also shared some photos of himself in the studio.Vibbbe pic.twitter.com/21WKNOnMXZ— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 31, 2020Meanwhile, earlier this week (August 23) Musk’s former partner and mother to two of his children, Grimes, hit out at journalists whom she claims are “stalking” and attempting to “dox” her and her children in an attempt to “get at” Musk.Grimes, who was in a relationship with Musk from 2018 to 2022, took to Twitter on Tuesday to blast those whom she claims are attempting to reveal personal information about her and her family.“To the journalists who are stalking me and trying to doxx me and my kids… contacting all my

New Music Friday! It's every audiophile's favorite day of the week, and some of our favorite artists from all different genres have blessed us with new tunes.Demi Lovato shared her latest album, featuring the fiery, viral anthem «29.» K-pop sensations BLACKPINK dropped their latest single, «Pink Venom.» Maren Morris and Zedd teamed up again for a new single, «Make You Say,» featuring BEAUZ. And Blake Shelton brought back his '90s mullet for the music video for his latest, «No Body.» Ahead of 88rising's Head In The Clouds Festival this weekend, Thai rapper MILLI and Chinese singer Jackson Wang partnered on a new single, «Mind Games.» Both artists will be performing at the Los Angeles festival, alongside acts like mxmtoon, keshi, Jay Park and more.Also new this week, new singles from Offset, Anitta feat.

Goop founder and CEO Gwyneth Paltrow will guest-star on “Shark Tank” as a guest shark.Paltrow will plunge into the competitive entrepreneurship show alongside Doordash CEO and co-founder Tony Xu when the 14th season starts Friday, Sept. 23.The pair of Paltrow and Xu will accompany long-standing Sharks Mark Cuban, Barbara Corcoran, Lori Greiner, Robert Herjavec, Daymond John and Kevin O’Leary in various episodes.The Oscar-winning actress, whose 1998 performance in “Shakespeare in Love’ won her Best Actress nods at the Academy Awards, Golden Globes and Screen Actors Guild Awards, established her lifestyle brand Goop in 2008.Goop has influenced conversation around style, travel, work, food and beauty to physical, mental and spiritual wellness as well as autonomy.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefTencent, the Chinese games and social media giant, revealed a more than 50% drop in profits for the three months to June 2022, the second quarter of its financial year. The figures were affected by a slowing economy in China, an operating environment made harder by regulatory changes and a slowdown in video games as users adjusted to post-pandemic activity.Net profits for the quarter weighed in at RMB19.2 billion ($2.83 billion), which represented a 55% slump compared with the same quarter in 2021, and down 19% compared with the first quarter of the current year.

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