Fifth of users willing to pay for concert webcasts

A new survey shows that Internet users are willing to pay for quality content online, with concerts ranking third in the list of video categories that they're willing to pay for.

The survey, released on Saturday, was conducted online by market research company CTR, a Sino-British venture.

Of 4,338 valid responses collected, 19 percent said they are willing to pay to watch "concerts" online, following the "latest blockbuster movies" (43 percent) and "classic movies" (29 percent).

Thirty-two percent of respondents said they are "not willing to pay for online video", according to the survey.

Chinese rock star Wang Feng, who hosted a paid live webcast of his concert at the National Stadium in Beijing on Aug 2, set the "ticket" price at 30 yuan ($4.90) and collected more than 75,000 paid accesses to the concert's live webcast and full length replay.

Both Wang Feng and video service provider LeTV were happy about the outcome, saying that the solid revenue suggested that paid live webcast of concerts have the potential of becoming another cash cow for the music industry.

The survey also showed that potential online concert audiences are younger and educated and nearly half of them are living in China's eastern and southern regions.

Of those who were willing to pay for online concerts, 26 percent are between 25 and 29 years old, and 20 percent are between 30 and 34 years old. About 18 percent of them are between 15 and 19 years.

From the education perspective, 51 percent of them have a highest education of undergraduate, followed by junior college (28 percent) and high school (14 percent).

Geographically, 29.1 percent of them live in East China, while 18.9 percent of them live in South China. There is not much difference across genders, as 54 percent of respondents are male, while 46 percent are female.

The survey also said that 56.3 percent of those willing to pay for online concerts own a tablet computer, which is 14 percentage points higher than tablets' penetration rate among all online video audience.