Episode 97: How Artists Build Real Fans In China (Platforms, Strategy & What Actually Works)

China can look like the biggest opportunity in music and the easiest place to get lost. I sit down with Jonathan Heeter, who runs Middle8, an outsourced China division for Western labels and artists, to translate what actually works on the ground and what Western playbooks get wrong. We map the Chinese music streaming landscape through Tencent’s QQ Music ecosystem and NetEase Cloud Music, then dig into why discovery algorithms can feel more sophisticated while staying stubbornly opaque. The ...