The $4.7 Billion K-Pop Industry Chases Its ‘Michael Jackson Moment’

The $4.7 Billion K-Pop Industry Chases Its ‘Michael Jackson Moment’

"YouTube is turning South Korea into a pop culture juggernaut."

By Sohee Kim, BLOOMBERG, Aug.23,2017

Wanna One appears on the red carpet at KCON Los Angeles in August 2017.

PHOTOGRAPHER: JULIAN BERMAN FOR BLOOMBERG BUSINESSWEEK

At a mountain retreat south of Seoul, some three dozen aspiring pop stars practice synchronized dance moves while singing into bottles of tea they grip in place of microphones. Then they do it again. And again.

Endless repetition, tear-inducing critiques from coaches, smile practice, and psychological counseling are plot points in an 11-week reality TV show documenting the creation of a teeny-bopper singing group. Idol School, which began airing in July, is part of a corporate push to turn Korean pop music into a global phenomenon.

A musical amalgam of photogenic performers, infectious synthesizer beats, and elaborate choreography, K-pop may be South Korea’s best-known export after smartphones and cars. Overseas revenue from CDs, concert tickets, streaming music, and related merchandise and services doubled since 2013, according to a government-affiliated group that tracks Korea’s cultural production, as the genre made inroads into Asia—notably Japan and China—and crossed over into the U.S. Global sales reached a record 5.3 trillion won ($4.7 billion) last year, according to the Korea Creative Content Agency.

On YouTube, views of videos by the top 200 K-pop artists have tripled since 2012. Last year they were watched about 24 billion times, with 80 percent of views coming from outside South Korea, YouTube says.

Boy band BTS has more page views than Lady Gaga, Selena Gomez, or Drake. “It might have been impossible for K-pop to have worldwide popularity without YouTube’s global platform,” says Sun Lee, head of music partnerships for Korea and Greater China at YouTube and Google Play. “K-pop is creating a great sensation in the U.S. I don’t think this is a temporary phenomenon.”

Streaming services Spotify, Apple Music, and AccuRadio have dedicated K-pop channels, as does the biggest service in China—QQ Music, which is owned by Tencent Holdings Ltd. and has 100 million daily active users. QQ’s most popular artist overall is Big Bang, a five-member Korean boy band with more than 11 million followers.

The producer of Idol School, and K-pop’s primary tastemaker, is CJ E&M Corp., which is part of the $17.7 billion CJ Group conglomerate that began as a sugar company and expanded into biotechnology, logistics, and entertainment. The unit manages some of the most popular acts on YouTube and Spotify playlists.

It owns almost two dozen television channels, including Mnet, Asia’s answer to MTV. It also puts on the region’s largest music awards show and organizes K-pop conventions in several cities.

Idol School, a reality show that began airing in July, pits aspiring pop stars against one another.

PHOTOGRAPHER: JEAN CHUNG/BLOOMBERG

Shin Hyung-kwan, the CJ executive overseeing much of this activity, grew up listening to Michael Jackson, Queen, and Duran Duran. During an interview in his Seoul office, which is adorned with framed girl group autographs and a half-mannequin draped with backstage passes, the 47-year-old executive drops references to grunge, Madonna, and the Beatles while discussing his plans to turn K-pop into a worldwide craze. “We are seeking our Michael Jackson moment,” he says, referring to the way a fledgling MTV helped propel Jackson’s 1982 Thriller to the status of world’s best-selling album, a designation it still enjoys. “Asian music has never been in the spotlight,” Shin says. “The big idea is to do meaningful things in the global market, especially in the U.S.”

South Korea, with a population of just 51 million, is the world’s eighth-largest market for recorded music by revenue, according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry. That’s bigger than either India or China, where piracy is rampant. The overseas business contributed more than 1 trillion won to the nation’s gross domestic product last year, including licensing and marketing, according to the Korea Foundation for International Culture Exchange. CJ E&M and other Korean companies in the entertainment space hope to magnify that by helping popularize K-pop abroad.

It’s part and parcel of what’s been called the Korean Wave, or hallyu, that’s lifted brands such as Samsung (electronics), Tonymoly (beauty and cosmetics), and Bibigo (food) to international prominence. The fascination with things Korean has helped spark a tourist boom: International arrivals jumped 76 percent from 2011 to 2016. The number of Chinese visitors more than tripled during that period, while those from the U.S. rose 31 percent. “These different aspects of Korean culture all rise together,” says Jeff Benjamin, who covers K-pop for Billboardmagazine in New York. “There is larger interest in Korean beauty products, Korean television shows and dramas, and Korean food companies.”

K-pop can involve several divisions of the chaebol—conglomerates such as Samsung Group—that dominate the $1.4 trillion South Korean economy. Samsung’s fashion unit collaborates with G-Dragon, frontman of Big Bang, the country’s top-grossing K-pop act, while its electronics unit features the group Wanna One in ad campaigns for its Samsung Pay digital wallet. Western companies also are getting in on the act. G-Dragon appears in an ad campaign for Chanel Inc.’s new Gabrielle handbag, while Amazon.com Inc., AT&T Inc., and McDonald’s Corp. have signed up to sponsor K-pop music festivals in the U.S.

While K-pop’s roots date back to the mid-1990s, it was the 2012 smash hit Gangnam Stylethat put the genre on the map. The video for the song became the first on YouTube’s website to surpass 1 billion views and earned its star, Psy, an appearance on Ellen DeGeneres’s talk show.

Excited fans during Wanna One’s appearance on the red carpet at KCON Los Angeles.

PHOTOGRAPHER: JULIAN BERMAN FOR BLOOMBERG BUSINESSWEEK

Spotify says streams of Korean music doubled in the first half of this year, with listeners in the U.S. making up one-quarter of the audience. “For a genre that is in a different language and from a very different culture, it is very inspiring to see how K-pop is making its mark on the global stage,” says Eve Tan, Singapore-based team leader for Asian content at Spotify.

CJ E&M, which reported a 35 percent increase in revenue from 2011 (pre-Gangnam Style) to 2016, is tapping into the growing interest with KCON, an annual K-pop convention of musical performances and meet-and-greets with the bands. The inaugural event took place in California in 2012, and there’ve since been others in Abu Dhabi, Mexico City, Paris, and Tokyo. This year’s L.A. convention drew 85,000 visitors over three days in August, according to CJ E&M. “It’s not our vision to make a single artist earn a huge amount of money or to achieve the Korean Invasion,” explains Shin, “but to make people in the world receive Korean culture without resistance.”

Priscilla, a K-pop fan, attended the Los Angeles event for the second year in a row.

PHOTOGRAPHER: JULIAN BERMAN FOR BLOOMBERG BUSINESSWEEK

Priscilla, a 22-year-old attending KCON Los Angeles for the second consecutive year, declined to give her surname, but was not reserved about her love of the genre. “My best friend is Korean and she showed me a lot of amazing artists,” she says, ticking off a list that includes Big Bang, Exo, and Red Velvet. Priscilla figures she spends roughly $50 a month on her K-pop habit. Asked how far she’d travel to see one of her favorite groups, she replies: “To the end of the world!” —With assistance from Lulu Yilun Chen

BOTTOM LINE - The number of views of YouTube videos made by the top 200 K-pop artists has tripled since 2012, with 80 percent of traffic last year coming from outside Korea.

Ref. Sohee Kim, BLOOMBERG, Aug.23,2017

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