“Big 3->Big 4 agencies, reshuffle w/ inclusion of CJENM and Big Hit, excludes YG”

The 3 major agencies that had been leading the Korean music industry and Kpop now includes 2 new agencies CJENM and Big Hit and excludes YG. The article goes into detail about each agency.

YG: the Seungri scandal had a big impact & exposed its weak finances. W/o Big Bang, YG was unable to make up the lost revenue despite its new groups. Winner/iKON, while popular, haven’t proved that their fandoms are big enough to handle dome/world tours.

BP is popular in Korea and abroad but they haven’t gotten strong ticket sales. It’s also difficult to see, with Seungri gone and TOP’s previous drug problems, how BB will be able to make a profit even with the members’ discharge from the military.

CJENM: doesn’t directly manage celebrities, instead invests in owning stakes in the management companies. They’ve become a big player in the music industry w/ subsidiaries that include: Jellyfish Ent., Stone Music Ent., Swing Ent., Amoeba Culture, AOMG, Highlight Records etc.

Recently, they’ve partnered w/Big Hit to make male idol group. They invested $6.16m into Belift Lab. BH will take on the artist development/music production while CJENM will be in charge of the global promotion w/ its skills in broadcast, convention/concert, music distribution.

CJENM is expected to exert more influence since they own much of the existing infrastructure to succeed in the music industry. Their subsidiary MNET has the “Superstar K,” “HS Rapper” and “Produce” series, which has made IOI, WannaOne and iz*one. They own labels, distributors etc

. @BigHitEnt: from “dirt spoon” to Kpop leader. @BTS_twt & BH started as “dirt spoons” but have grown into Korea’s representative artists and entertainment company. They had a big rise in profits compared to last year, boasting a higher operating profit ratio than other companies.

BH is the main focus of many financial companies bc of their potential IPO rn. Based on last year’s financial data, their value could be $882m to $1.76b w/ the potential to have the largest market capitalization among the kpop agencies, surpassing the Big 3.

Ofc, BH has a # of risks: not enough artists, re-signing, military enlistment etc. But, they’ve solved the problem of re-signing when @BTS_twt re-signed w/BH for 7 more yrs and worries of there not being enough artists significantly decreased w/ the successful launch of txt.

One industry insider said, “BH seems to have come up with alternative measures to offset the concerns about BTS’ military enlistment period thanks to txt’s successful debut. The next group to be developed w/ CJENM through Belift Lab is also raising expectations.”

Here’s the link to the article: https://entertain.v.daum.net/v/20190327092519163