Chairman Bang Si Hyuk of HYBE Corporation presented a company outline for the “Future of K-Pop” through a forum hosted by Kwanhun Club on March 15 at Seoul Press Center. 

On this day, through his lecture on the sustainability of the K-Pop market, Bang Si Hyuk warned market leaders that this was not a time to “celebrate” the globalization of K-Pop, but alternatively, recognize the “dangers” lying ahead while preparing for the future. 

“If you examine K-Pop to the previous, positive, the market has created worthwhile progress. But if you appear at the international music market as a complete, there are nonetheless numerous mountains to climb,” Bang Si Hyuk started. 

“If you appear at the K-Pop companies forming the foundation of this market, all of these businesses with each other occupy significantly less than two% of the income shares of the worldwide music market. But if you appear at the significant three music businesses of the globe, Universal Music Group, Sony Music Group, and Warner Music Group, every organization occupies 15~30% of the complete industry’s income shares. With each other, with their immense influence, these 3 giants occupy as considerably as 67.four% of the revenues of the worldwide music market. In other words, the K-Pop market is nonetheless just a ‘David’ amongst 3 ‘Goliath’s,” the businessman and producer continued. 

Bang Si Hyuk then went on to point to trends indicating a current lull in K-Pop’s development in regions across the globe, such as the United States and Southeast Asia, specifically compared to information from 2021. 

“For our Korean entertainment businesses to compete in great faith with major tier businesses about the globe, although keeping and expanding the indigenous qualities and capabilities of K-Pop, the market itself demands to give some thing a lot more than the freshness of a new player in the field. Just as ‘Samsung‘ has its spot in the international semiconductor market, and ‘Hyundai‘ has its spot in the international automobile market, K-Pop has arrived at a point exactly where the emergence of a global entertainment powerhouse, which can break by way of the present barriers and play a crucial function in the genre’s overall development, is critical,” chairman Bang explained. 

Bang additional commented, “As an individual who has witnessed the worth and power of this industry being built and made by various artists, producers, and employees by way of their blood, sweat, and tears, I do not want for it to merely disappear with the passing of time, only for it to develop into someone’s ‘memories’.”

According to Bang Si Hyuk, the absence of BTS’s group promotions is a essential element contributing to what he believes is an “threatened” era of the K-Pop market. The producer claimed, “The IP influence held by BTS worldwide is just incomparable. BTS’s international attain is broader than that of the K-Pop market on its personal, and if you take BTS out of that market, its size decreases tremendously. So the reality that BTS will be absent as a group from this market is a good contributor. And the correct threat we can perceive from that is that even if BTS had been to resume their group promotions tomorrow, there is no assure that the market will recover the very same influence and attain.”

Right here, Bang added on, “We want to discover a way to sustain K-Pop’s development, even in BTS’s absence. It will be exceptionally challenging to discover 1 precise purpose, 1 precise resolution. The sale of music happens when buyers behave as buyers of culture. It is essential to investigation and assess what elements influence buyers of distinct regions, distinct nations. We’ve observed by way of the BTS trickle-down impact how international buyers come in speak to with K-Pop. We have to make use of fan platforms as the speak to point by way of which a lot more K-Pop artists can enter the international marketplace, and nurture the awakening of dormant fandoms worldwide.” 

Ultimately, Bang Si Hyuk relayed, “With faith in the international capacity of K-Pop, which I’ve witnessed all through the final ten years as I worked alongside artists, market leaders, and fans, I hope that individuals will help the good challenges that David has taken against the Goliaths. With duty, I will take the lead in starting these efforts to make certain that individuals all more than the globe can get pleasure from the music and the contents created by our nation for years to come.”