January 3, 2024 • 23 mins
We're taking a break this week, here's an episode you might have missed.
Bloomberg’s Lucas Shaw and Sohee Kim join this episode to talk about Bang Si-Hyuk, South Korea’s enormously successful music mogul. The billionaire has built a K-pop empire with bands like BTS and New Jeans, and he’s now looking to expand on that model with a new, global act based in the US.
Read more: The K-Pop Mogul Behind BTS Is Building the Next BTS
Listen to The Big Take podcast every weekday and subscribe to our daily newsletter: https://bloom.bg/3F3EJAK
Have questions or comments for Wes and the team? Reach us at bigtake@bloomberg.net.
This episode was produced by: Supervising Producer: Vicki Vergolina, Senior Producer: Kathryn Fink, Producer: Federica Romaniello, Associate Producer: Zaynab Siddiqui. Sound Design/Engineer: Raphael Amsili.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hyatt's Westkasova. The Big Take is taking a break this week,
so here's an episode you might have missed. Even if
you're not a teenager, chances are these catchy songs have
hit your ears at one time or another.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
The best muse is.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
Coming, going like You's not coming more the mocking.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
There's some of the biggest Korean pop or k pop
hits of the last few years from a band called BTS.
They've built a huge international following. Their songs have more
than thirty two million monthly listeners on Spotify, and the
band's fans are extremely devoted. And now the man behind
(01:08):
these artists' success has an even more ambitious global plant.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
That dream stream economy.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Bangshi Huck is partnering with Universal Music Group, one of
the world's biggest music companies, to try to recreate the
success of BTS with a new band outside of Korea.
Its members will be young women from all around the world.
Speaker 4 (01:33):
This is the first US based K pop international girl bands.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
They have built into this process a lot of steps
that they hope will cultivate a fan base before the
group even debuts.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
That's Bloomberg so He Kim and Lucas Shaw They're here
to tell us how BTS became so big and whether
Bang can do it again. I'm west Kosova today on
the Big Take How to Build the Next pop music Sensation.
(02:15):
I asked Lucas to tell us a bit about Bang Shihok.
He's very well known in South Korea, but those of
us in the US and some other parts of the
world might not know much about him.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
So they don't know him per se, but they are
very familiar with BTS, which is the group that he
helped form and create through his company, which at the
time was called Big Hit Entertainment and is now called HIBE.
The success of BTS made HIVE the biggest music company
(02:47):
in South Korea, made Bang the richest and most powerful
music mogul in South Korea, and really, I think is
credited by a lot of people with helping to bring
K pop to the masses and bring K pop all
roun the world. Following the success of BTS, you know,
you've seen a lot of different groups come to the
US tour Europe, whether that's Black Pink, which is a
(03:14):
girl group with a rival company, or twice. We've seen
this steady influx of Korean music all over the world,
and I think Bong gets a tremendous amount of credit
for that, and no small part because of his work
with BTS.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
So he's been in the business a long time and
he has this storied career. Can you tell us just
about how he got started?
Speaker 4 (03:40):
He grew up listening to British pop, USC pop and
started writing songs inspired by Duran, Duran and Timberland. He
kept playing composing music with his band and he won
a national song contest in nineteen ninety four. Not long
after that, he was scouted by a pop singer, Paktinjong,
and both founded JP Entertainment in nineteen ninety seven. Park
(04:04):
also spent his childhood in New York and both had
the American dream. They had confidence with their huge success
at home. Theason based a tough reality because the K
pop had not landed in the US and no one
actually knew how to monetize or adopt K pop model
in the US. The board of JP at the time
(04:24):
opposed to their bold ambitions to establish business in the US,
and they didn't give the financial support. Park and Bank
had to move into a friend's house in LA and
live together, so his time in La later not became
like valuable lessons for his US ambition. Maybe the major
(04:44):
part of his lesson was the attitude toward music was
completely different because he worked like a machine while his
fellow US producer seemed to enjoy music itself. That completely
changed his attitude and he came back to Seoul and
left to establish his own company, Bikit Entertainment in two
thousand and five.
Speaker 3 (05:04):
And when Bond came back to South Korea after the
time in the US and split from JYP, one of
the things that he wanted to do was try to
bring some of the American sensibility over to his home country.
A lot of that I think was sonically. His initial
efforts with Big Hit did not work. He had three
to five years of trying to figure out what was
the right artist for them, and even in the case
(05:27):
of BTS, initially they thought it might be a hip
hop group and it was only after they started to
develop the group that they decided to go in the
pop direction.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
How did he form BTS because it kind of had
an unusual start.
Speaker 4 (05:40):
So initially Big Kid had no hit songs and they
tried to form a hip hop group as like a
Lucas mentioned, they were looking into some talented producers, talented
as singers and pop stars that they could turn that
into a group, a eid group that K pop is
known for twenty ten. P Dog the initial producer. He
(06:04):
found out a demo tape from a performer.
Speaker 5 (06:10):
Cantung Hatchet Fields, and he later became a rap monster.
Speaker 4 (06:17):
The leader of BTS, so like pe Doc gave a
demo tape to Bang and the band was so fascinated
with this boy, like fifteen year old boy, and he
immediately started to scout more members to form a hip
hop boy band. They did a nationwide audition and scouted
(06:39):
Sugar the second member who can produce songs and basically
a rap line member, and Jay Hoppe was a dancer.
Speaker 6 (06:53):
Hello, Army is ja right here?
Speaker 4 (06:56):
And he is also a rap line member. They ended
those training pool to bring more charming and the more
talented passionate members. They formed the seven member boy band
at the end after years long training and the survival
audition and competition among like thirty trainees. So that was
(07:20):
the beginning of of BTS.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
The crazy thing when you think about BTS and the
development of the artists is that they started to form
and I think twenty ten. The group doesn't debut until
twenty twelve, two and thirteen, so it takes two or
three years for them to even form and train. And
that's another thing that's very different about the Korean music style,
where there's this whole T and D process training and development,
(07:49):
where the management companies spend anywhere from a year to
several years first picking the members and then training them.
And even when BTS debuts, it wasn't immediately bigger and
some of the other big acts debuting at the time,
it took two three four years for them to start
to find a global audience.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
Lucas and So he report a big reason BTS really
did start to break out was because of the way
Bong tried to marry what he'd learned in America with
the traditional South Korean model.
Speaker 3 (08:20):
There had been historically in South Korea a lot of
restrictions around what acts could do during the training process,
how they communicated with the outside world. Everything was very
closely managed by the big companies. South Korean management companies
exerted a lot more control over their artists than those
in the West. That is financial, you know, they take
(08:41):
a piece of touring and merchandise and music and all
these other areas that US record labels, for example, or
US management companies don't always participate, but also just in
their day to day behavior at least while the artists
are in the training process before they've made their debut.
You know, they're not supposed to date. There are severe
limits on what they can eat, like no junk food.
(09:01):
They're really not supposed to communicate that much about what
they're doing with the outside world. And Bong encouraged the
members of BTS to communicate openly with their fans.
Speaker 5 (09:11):
Ah Hi I, Sabrina Rubts.
Speaker 3 (09:17):
And really build a following, and that coincided with the
explosion in Twitter. Facebook was already fairly popular, Instagram came around,
YouTube was really getting big, and so one of the
novelties of BTS and one of the things where they've
been really a pioneer in, is building these ardent online
fan bases, some of it through sort of your traditional
(09:37):
American social media channels, but then also in a way
that is very kind of uniquely Korean or at least
East Asian, both in terms of the apps that they use.
You know, Hibe has its own app called Weavers, and
in terms of some of the different fan meetups and interaction.
You know, you look at the way that Korean fans
kind of support the artists that they love, and it's
(09:58):
at another level.
Speaker 5 (10:01):
BTS to you guys every day. Well anyway home.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
For me, BTS came into my life when I needed
when I needed them the most, and they saved me
from the process. So when BTS came out, their sound
was really different compared to the groups that were out,
and I was instantly like, this is really cool, this
is really different. The dancing was great, they were really cute,
(10:30):
and the music was really fun.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
One of the few US artists who has anything close
to it or comparable is Taylor Swift. A lot of
what Taylor Swift has done in the last three to
five years is in many ways modeled off of what
Bong did with BTS.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
When we come back Bond's plan for a new global
music group. It may have taken BTS years of training
and development before making their debut, but as we know,
they've since become a huge hit group. They have number
(11:06):
one singles all around the world. I asked Lucas and
so he to tell us.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
How that happened in the Internet era. So much happens
with momentum, and so like BTS develops a following in
South Korea and it gets really big in Southeast Asia
and across Asia where K pop was already huge, and
then it just for a whole post of different reasons.
This fan base sort of propels it to fandom everywhere else,
(11:35):
and once a few people start buying in, they become
sort of part of a movement. It's almost like a meme.
But they had music that people really connected with.
Speaker 4 (11:44):
Their songs and their messages and their communications with fans
were so powerful because they were talking about self love
and empowerment of the youth. It was a very aligned
with the UNS and to support youth. That also helped
like a BTS to make a speech at the UN
(12:08):
and like a White House, and they were the front
line speaker for youth and Asians.
Speaker 5 (12:14):
We've been partnering with Unstuff's in Violence program to protect
children and young people all over the world from violence,
and our fans have become a major part of this campaign.
With their action and with their enthusiasm, we truly have
the best fans in the world.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
BTS was on top, but Bob began to think about
just how long that would last.
Speaker 3 (12:38):
Bob was looking at his business at the peak of
BTS's power and fame sort of twenty eighteen, twenty nineteen
into twenty twenty. He knew that he needed to figure
out sort of what the next step was for his company,
how he was going to diversify it, both because pop
groups don't last forever. Most of them tend to last
(12:59):
sort of like five to seven years. BTS at that
point was already almost a decade old. It's now more
than a decade old. There was also the issue of
the South Korean requirement that men serve in the military.
They had gotten that sort of pushed later and later,
but he had to assume at some point that the
various members would have to serve as they are now,
and that would take them off the table for a
couple of years.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
I've been into kpop for almost twenty years, so I
always know, especially guide groups, they're going to go to
the army, so you know it's coming, but it's still like, ugh, Okay,
I'm proud of you for going, because like that's really
something strong and admirable. But oh man, the lack of music,
(13:40):
the lack of concert's gonna be so hard, and.
Speaker 3 (13:44):
So he sought out to raise money and expand his
business globally. Some of that was necessity and some of
that was just he's an ambitious guy. He's very humble,
but he wanted to build this company into something bigger
and greater. So they went public in twenty twenty raise
some money. He went shopping bought a big US music
company called Ethical Holdings, which is run by the manager
Scooter Braun, best known for his work with Justin Bieber
(14:07):
and Ariana Grande during COVID.
Speaker 6 (14:10):
I got a call and they said, would you be
interested in your company joining another company out of Korea?
And I had watched BTS and watched Bang from a distance,
and I was curious, and I didn't want anyone to know.
And I said, sure, let's meet, let's talk. And we
started doing weekly zooms, telling no one about them.
Speaker 3 (14:29):
He went and bought another record label with Scooter Braun.
He tried to buy sort of one of his biggest
competitors in Korea. And at the same time that he
was sort of buying these assets that would diversify the business,
he was building up some technology and he started to
try and develop more acts now he's developed a couple
of big acts that are local to South Korea, but
(14:50):
he also had this vision for applying the model that
they'd used with BTS and really across South Korea using
that training and development process, but also cultivating that extreme
fandom with a global group, and for help with that,
he turned to Universal Music Group, the biggest music group
in the world.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
With Universal Bang as attempting to build out a truly
global girl group with a massive publicity and social media
campaign around the contest to choose its members. They're calling
it the Debut Dream Academy.
Speaker 3 (15:25):
Dream Swap.
Speaker 4 (15:34):
Dream Dream Academy. This is the first US based K
pop international girl band, so there are girls from twelve countries.
It's not all Asian pop girl band that used to be,
so this is a truly an international girl band that
(15:56):
Hibe wants to make it as a US like a
focus and they would have become a more global approach,
not only like attract K pop bands, but to the
pop fans in general. They are doing this month long
competition and audition programs online.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
Each step will be a gateway to the next.
Speaker 3 (16:18):
For three rounds of eliminations leading to a live finale.
On November seventeen. They have built into this process a
lot of steps that they hope will cultivate a fan
base before the group even debuts. So they cast a
wide net for this casting process that took almost a year.
I think they said that they had more than one
hundred twenty thousand applications. More than seventy thousand of those
(16:40):
came in within the first like ten days. They did
some in person casting calls throughout the world. They narrow
that down to one hundred or so people, and then
they've spent the last year training them and winnowing down
the group in the US. During this competition, you know,
they unveiled the twenty finalists at this event in Santa
Monica in late August. For our final limitation, we invite
(17:04):
Allia And since then they've been uploading videos with different
missions and competitions. Every woman in the group has a
video on YouTube TikTok and weavers introducing themselves, and then
they have different videos of different challenges and different videos
of behind the scenes. And then when the women get
(17:24):
sent home, they do a goodbye video, well s.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
It's been a journey, it'sn't crazy. Almost everybody voted me out.
Speaker 5 (17:31):
Maybe they're afraid.
Speaker 3 (17:33):
Whatever got except it's this whole different methodology for trying
to cultivate a fan base. I will say that there
is a part of me and a part I think
even of some of the people involved in this process,
who wonder if it all feels a little contrived. You know,
you think about something like BTS and in retrospect it
seems like banghad this master plan right, But a lot
(17:55):
of it is just sort of kismet and right place,
right time, right messaging, and it just works. It's always
much harder to sort of manufacture that concept. Like New Genes,
which is a different group that they have has done
very well, but they didn't set out with this exact process.
(18:15):
John Jannik, the head of Interscope, Geffen A and M,
he told me that when he first got pitched this idea,
he had reservations about it, but the more he got
to know Bong and the more they talked about it,
he just bought into this guy's vision and so.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
He is it working? Are people watching the YouTube videos
and Netflix documentary voting online? Are they participating in the hype?
Speaker 4 (18:36):
There are at least one hundred thousands of events on
like a weavers, like voting online, and they are commenting
on like every performance of these girls training programs, illumination programs,
so they are supporting girls and at the same time
they are like a selecting girls who should become the
(18:56):
final members. So they're on TikTok, weavers and YouTube supporting
the band's debut. And I would say, well, they are
already like engaging with this band event. And one of
the biggest merits to do this audition program is that
they already like have the huge fan base online and global.
When they come out as a band, they can just
(19:19):
go straight to like a concert and like a music
live shows when they're ready, and fans.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
Will be there when we come back. Will the K
pop model work in the rest of the world. We've
heard about Bond's success creating bts and other popular bands,
so he and Lucas say that one of the most
(19:47):
important things for this new group is to quickly build
a fan base big enough to fill stadiums for their concerts.
Speaker 4 (19:56):
Once they become big band, like a K pop band,
they can tour globally like a US Dubai, La and
Soul and Tokyo everywhere in the world, and then there
would like a collect money from the kvivers, like from
merchandise as stuff fans would love to buy.
Speaker 3 (20:15):
Yeah, I mean the earnings are going to so depend
on how popular they are, right, most musicians don't make
a lot of money from the recording of their music anymore.
The people at the very very top do. But for
the most part, even those big stars make a lot
more money from the tour. One thing that tends to
be different about some of the bigger K pop groups,
I think they have preferred for doing fewer but bigger shows.
(20:38):
They come to the US and they'll do multiple nights
in LA at a stadium or at an arena, big venue,
but they're not doing forty shows in fifty five nights.
But each show that they do, the gross is higher
because it's a bigger venue, because they sell so much merchandise.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
So this international girl group is really just the beginning.
They're hoping they can replicate the Dream Academy model over
and over again.
Speaker 4 (21:05):
Yeah, that's the idea of Hive, and right now the
focus is on the US. But like, definitely if this
makes a huge success in the US, they were definitely
differentchise in different cities all around the world.
Speaker 3 (21:21):
You know, the US is such a big focus for
him right now. He bought a house in the US.
He's spending a lot of time in the US. The
Korean business. He feels like he has a team in
place to look after it. But if it works here,
there's no reason why they can't try micro versions of
it or other versions of it in other markets. You know,
whether they'd partner with a local label or how that
would work remains to be seen.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
So he write that the music industry in Korea is
very competitive. Are the other labels in Korea watching what
Bang is doing and maybe going to try to reproduce it.
Speaker 4 (21:53):
We wrote a lot about his friendship with JOYP founder Patino,
and he's actually also like a trying to build out
a new US girl group partnering with one of the
US record labels. And there are a lot of agencies
watching this momentum and trying to follow, like what Hype
is doing. They are setting up their US office and
(22:16):
trying to like partner with Sony Music or like a
warner or like Universal to get involved with the US
music scene after like seeing whether this could become a
big hit, and they will like definitely jump into this
formula and probably like us, record labels would find Crean
(22:38):
partner as well.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
So Lucas, thanks so much for sharing your reporting. Thank you,
thank you, thanks for listening to us here at The
Big Take. It's a daily podcast from Bloomberg and iHeartRadio.
For more shows from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen, and we'd love to
hear from you. Email us questions or comments to Big
(23:00):
Take at Bloomberg dot net. The supervising producer of The
Big Take is Vicky Virgalina. Our senior producer is Katherine Fink.
This episode was produced by Frederica Romanello and edited by
Caitlin Kenney. Our associate producer is Zenebsidiki. Rafael mcili is
our engineer. Our original music was composed by Leo Sidrin.
(23:21):
I'm West Kasova. We'll be back tomorrow with another Big
Take
Hyatt's Westkasova. The Big Take is taking a break this week,
so here's an episode you might have missed. Even if
you're not a teenager, chances are these catchy songs have
hit your ears at one time or another.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
The best muse is.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
Coming, going like You's not coming more the mocking.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
There's some of the biggest Korean pop or k pop
hits of the last few years from a band called BTS.
They've built a huge international following. Their songs have more
than thirty two million monthly listeners on Spotify, and the
band's fans are extremely devoted. And now the man behind
(01:08):
these artists' success has an even more ambitious global plant.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
That dream stream economy.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Bangshi Huck is partnering with Universal Music Group, one of
the world's biggest music companies, to try to recreate the
success of BTS with a new band outside of Korea.
Its members will be young women from all around the world.
Speaker 4 (01:33):
This is the first US based K pop international girl bands.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
They have built into this process a lot of steps
that they hope will cultivate a fan base before the
group even debuts.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
That's Bloomberg so He Kim and Lucas Shaw They're here
to tell us how BTS became so big and whether
Bang can do it again. I'm west Kosova today on
the Big Take How to Build the Next pop music Sensation.
(02:15):
I asked Lucas to tell us a bit about Bang Shihok.
He's very well known in South Korea, but those of
us in the US and some other parts of the
world might not know much about him.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
So they don't know him per se, but they are
very familiar with BTS, which is the group that he
helped form and create through his company, which at the
time was called Big Hit Entertainment and is now called HIBE.
The success of BTS made HIVE the biggest music company
(02:47):
in South Korea, made Bang the richest and most powerful
music mogul in South Korea, and really, I think is
credited by a lot of people with helping to bring
K pop to the masses and bring K pop all
roun the world. Following the success of BTS, you know,
you've seen a lot of different groups come to the
US tour Europe, whether that's Black Pink, which is a
(03:14):
girl group with a rival company, or twice. We've seen
this steady influx of Korean music all over the world,
and I think Bong gets a tremendous amount of credit
for that, and no small part because of his work
with BTS.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
So he's been in the business a long time and
he has this storied career. Can you tell us just
about how he got started?
Speaker 4 (03:40):
He grew up listening to British pop, USC pop and
started writing songs inspired by Duran, Duran and Timberland. He
kept playing composing music with his band and he won
a national song contest in nineteen ninety four. Not long
after that, he was scouted by a pop singer, Paktinjong,
and both founded JP Entertainment in nineteen ninety seven. Park
(04:04):
also spent his childhood in New York and both had
the American dream. They had confidence with their huge success
at home. Theason based a tough reality because the K
pop had not landed in the US and no one
actually knew how to monetize or adopt K pop model
in the US. The board of JP at the time
(04:24):
opposed to their bold ambitions to establish business in the US,
and they didn't give the financial support. Park and Bank
had to move into a friend's house in LA and
live together, so his time in La later not became
like valuable lessons for his US ambition. Maybe the major
(04:44):
part of his lesson was the attitude toward music was
completely different because he worked like a machine while his
fellow US producer seemed to enjoy music itself. That completely
changed his attitude and he came back to Seoul and
left to establish his own company, Bikit Entertainment in two
thousand and five.
Speaker 3 (05:04):
And when Bond came back to South Korea after the
time in the US and split from JYP, one of
the things that he wanted to do was try to
bring some of the American sensibility over to his home country.
A lot of that I think was sonically. His initial
efforts with Big Hit did not work. He had three
to five years of trying to figure out what was
the right artist for them, and even in the case
(05:27):
of BTS, initially they thought it might be a hip
hop group and it was only after they started to
develop the group that they decided to go in the
pop direction.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
How did he form BTS because it kind of had
an unusual start.
Speaker 4 (05:40):
So initially Big Kid had no hit songs and they
tried to form a hip hop group as like a
Lucas mentioned, they were looking into some talented producers, talented
as singers and pop stars that they could turn that
into a group, a eid group that K pop is
known for twenty ten. P Dog the initial producer. He
(06:04):
found out a demo tape from a performer.
Speaker 5 (06:10):
Cantung Hatchet Fields, and he later became a rap monster.
Speaker 4 (06:17):
The leader of BTS, so like pe Doc gave a
demo tape to Bang and the band was so fascinated
with this boy, like fifteen year old boy, and he
immediately started to scout more members to form a hip
hop boy band. They did a nationwide audition and scouted
(06:39):
Sugar the second member who can produce songs and basically
a rap line member, and Jay Hoppe was a dancer.
Speaker 6 (06:53):
Hello, Army is ja right here?
Speaker 4 (06:56):
And he is also a rap line member. They ended
those training pool to bring more charming and the more
talented passionate members. They formed the seven member boy band
at the end after years long training and the survival
audition and competition among like thirty trainees. So that was
(07:20):
the beginning of of BTS.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
The crazy thing when you think about BTS and the
development of the artists is that they started to form
and I think twenty ten. The group doesn't debut until
twenty twelve, two and thirteen, so it takes two or
three years for them to even form and train. And
that's another thing that's very different about the Korean music style,
where there's this whole T and D process training and development,
(07:49):
where the management companies spend anywhere from a year to
several years first picking the members and then training them.
And even when BTS debuts, it wasn't immediately bigger and
some of the other big acts debuting at the time,
it took two three four years for them to start
to find a global audience.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
Lucas and So he report a big reason BTS really
did start to break out was because of the way
Bong tried to marry what he'd learned in America with
the traditional South Korean model.
Speaker 3 (08:20):
There had been historically in South Korea a lot of
restrictions around what acts could do during the training process,
how they communicated with the outside world. Everything was very
closely managed by the big companies. South Korean management companies
exerted a lot more control over their artists than those
in the West. That is financial, you know, they take
(08:41):
a piece of touring and merchandise and music and all
these other areas that US record labels, for example, or
US management companies don't always participate, but also just in
their day to day behavior at least while the artists
are in the training process before they've made their debut.
You know, they're not supposed to date. There are severe
limits on what they can eat, like no junk food.
(09:01):
They're really not supposed to communicate that much about what
they're doing with the outside world. And Bong encouraged the
members of BTS to communicate openly with their fans.
Speaker 5 (09:11):
Ah Hi I, Sabrina Rubts.
Speaker 3 (09:17):
And really build a following, and that coincided with the
explosion in Twitter. Facebook was already fairly popular, Instagram came around,
YouTube was really getting big, and so one of the
novelties of BTS and one of the things where they've
been really a pioneer in, is building these ardent online
fan bases, some of it through sort of your traditional
(09:37):
American social media channels, but then also in a way
that is very kind of uniquely Korean or at least
East Asian, both in terms of the apps that they use.
You know, Hibe has its own app called Weavers, and
in terms of some of the different fan meetups and interaction.
You know, you look at the way that Korean fans
kind of support the artists that they love, and it's
(09:58):
at another level.
Speaker 5 (10:01):
BTS to you guys every day. Well anyway home.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
For me, BTS came into my life when I needed
when I needed them the most, and they saved me
from the process. So when BTS came out, their sound
was really different compared to the groups that were out,
and I was instantly like, this is really cool, this
is really different. The dancing was great, they were really cute,
(10:30):
and the music was really fun.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
One of the few US artists who has anything close
to it or comparable is Taylor Swift. A lot of
what Taylor Swift has done in the last three to
five years is in many ways modeled off of what
Bong did with BTS.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
When we come back Bond's plan for a new global
music group. It may have taken BTS years of training
and development before making their debut, but as we know,
they've since become a huge hit group. They have number
(11:06):
one singles all around the world. I asked Lucas and
so he to tell us.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
How that happened in the Internet era. So much happens
with momentum, and so like BTS develops a following in
South Korea and it gets really big in Southeast Asia
and across Asia where K pop was already huge, and
then it just for a whole post of different reasons.
This fan base sort of propels it to fandom everywhere else,
(11:35):
and once a few people start buying in, they become
sort of part of a movement. It's almost like a meme.
But they had music that people really connected with.
Speaker 4 (11:44):
Their songs and their messages and their communications with fans
were so powerful because they were talking about self love
and empowerment of the youth. It was a very aligned
with the UNS and to support youth. That also helped
like a BTS to make a speech at the UN
(12:08):
and like a White House, and they were the front
line speaker for youth and Asians.
Speaker 5 (12:14):
We've been partnering with Unstuff's in Violence program to protect
children and young people all over the world from violence,
and our fans have become a major part of this campaign.
With their action and with their enthusiasm, we truly have
the best fans in the world.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
BTS was on top, but Bob began to think about
just how long that would last.
Speaker 3 (12:38):
Bob was looking at his business at the peak of
BTS's power and fame sort of twenty eighteen, twenty nineteen
into twenty twenty. He knew that he needed to figure
out sort of what the next step was for his company,
how he was going to diversify it, both because pop
groups don't last forever. Most of them tend to last
(12:59):
sort of like five to seven years. BTS at that
point was already almost a decade old. It's now more
than a decade old. There was also the issue of
the South Korean requirement that men serve in the military.
They had gotten that sort of pushed later and later,
but he had to assume at some point that the
various members would have to serve as they are now,
and that would take them off the table for a
couple of years.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
I've been into kpop for almost twenty years, so I
always know, especially guide groups, they're going to go to
the army, so you know it's coming, but it's still like, ugh, Okay,
I'm proud of you for going, because like that's really
something strong and admirable. But oh man, the lack of music,
(13:40):
the lack of concert's gonna be so hard, and.
Speaker 3 (13:44):
So he sought out to raise money and expand his
business globally. Some of that was necessity and some of
that was just he's an ambitious guy. He's very humble,
but he wanted to build this company into something bigger
and greater. So they went public in twenty twenty raise
some money. He went shopping bought a big US music
company called Ethical Holdings, which is run by the manager
Scooter Braun, best known for his work with Justin Bieber
(14:07):
and Ariana Grande during COVID.
Speaker 6 (14:10):
I got a call and they said, would you be
interested in your company joining another company out of Korea?
And I had watched BTS and watched Bang from a distance,
and I was curious, and I didn't want anyone to know.
And I said, sure, let's meet, let's talk. And we
started doing weekly zooms, telling no one about them.
Speaker 3 (14:29):
He went and bought another record label with Scooter Braun.
He tried to buy sort of one of his biggest
competitors in Korea. And at the same time that he
was sort of buying these assets that would diversify the business,
he was building up some technology and he started to
try and develop more acts now he's developed a couple
of big acts that are local to South Korea, but
(14:50):
he also had this vision for applying the model that
they'd used with BTS and really across South Korea using
that training and development process, but also cultivating that extreme
fandom with a global group, and for help with that,
he turned to Universal Music Group, the biggest music group
in the world.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
With Universal Bang as attempting to build out a truly
global girl group with a massive publicity and social media
campaign around the contest to choose its members. They're calling
it the Debut Dream Academy.
Speaker 3 (15:25):
Dream Swap.
Speaker 4 (15:34):
Dream Dream Academy. This is the first US based K
pop international girl band, so there are girls from twelve countries.
It's not all Asian pop girl band that used to be,
so this is a truly an international girl band that
(15:56):
Hibe wants to make it as a US like a
focus and they would have become a more global approach,
not only like attract K pop bands, but to the
pop fans in general. They are doing this month long
competition and audition programs online.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
Each step will be a gateway to the next.
Speaker 3 (16:18):
For three rounds of eliminations leading to a live finale.
On November seventeen. They have built into this process a
lot of steps that they hope will cultivate a fan
base before the group even debuts. So they cast a
wide net for this casting process that took almost a year.
I think they said that they had more than one
hundred twenty thousand applications. More than seventy thousand of those
(16:40):
came in within the first like ten days. They did
some in person casting calls throughout the world. They narrow
that down to one hundred or so people, and then
they've spent the last year training them and winnowing down
the group in the US. During this competition, you know,
they unveiled the twenty finalists at this event in Santa
Monica in late August. For our final limitation, we invite
(17:04):
Allia And since then they've been uploading videos with different
missions and competitions. Every woman in the group has a
video on YouTube TikTok and weavers introducing themselves, and then
they have different videos of different challenges and different videos
of behind the scenes. And then when the women get
(17:24):
sent home, they do a goodbye video, well s.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
It's been a journey, it'sn't crazy. Almost everybody voted me out.
Speaker 5 (17:31):
Maybe they're afraid.
Speaker 3 (17:33):
Whatever got except it's this whole different methodology for trying
to cultivate a fan base. I will say that there
is a part of me and a part I think
even of some of the people involved in this process,
who wonder if it all feels a little contrived. You know,
you think about something like BTS and in retrospect it
seems like banghad this master plan right, But a lot
(17:55):
of it is just sort of kismet and right place,
right time, right messaging, and it just works. It's always
much harder to sort of manufacture that concept. Like New Genes,
which is a different group that they have has done
very well, but they didn't set out with this exact process.
(18:15):
John Jannik, the head of Interscope, Geffen A and M,
he told me that when he first got pitched this idea,
he had reservations about it, but the more he got
to know Bong and the more they talked about it,
he just bought into this guy's vision and so.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
He is it working? Are people watching the YouTube videos
and Netflix documentary voting online? Are they participating in the hype?
Speaker 4 (18:36):
There are at least one hundred thousands of events on
like a weavers, like voting online, and they are commenting
on like every performance of these girls training programs, illumination programs,
so they are supporting girls and at the same time
they are like a selecting girls who should become the
(18:56):
final members. So they're on TikTok, weavers and YouTube supporting
the band's debut. And I would say, well, they are
already like engaging with this band event. And one of
the biggest merits to do this audition program is that
they already like have the huge fan base online and global.
When they come out as a band, they can just
(19:19):
go straight to like a concert and like a music
live shows when they're ready, and fans.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
Will be there when we come back. Will the K
pop model work in the rest of the world. We've
heard about Bond's success creating bts and other popular bands,
so he and Lucas say that one of the most
(19:47):
important things for this new group is to quickly build
a fan base big enough to fill stadiums for their concerts.
Speaker 4 (19:56):
Once they become big band, like a K pop band,
they can tour globally like a US Dubai, La and
Soul and Tokyo everywhere in the world, and then there
would like a collect money from the kvivers, like from
merchandise as stuff fans would love to buy.
Speaker 3 (20:15):
Yeah, I mean the earnings are going to so depend
on how popular they are, right, most musicians don't make
a lot of money from the recording of their music anymore.
The people at the very very top do. But for
the most part, even those big stars make a lot
more money from the tour. One thing that tends to
be different about some of the bigger K pop groups,
I think they have preferred for doing fewer but bigger shows.
(20:38):
They come to the US and they'll do multiple nights
in LA at a stadium or at an arena, big venue,
but they're not doing forty shows in fifty five nights.
But each show that they do, the gross is higher
because it's a bigger venue, because they sell so much merchandise.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
So this international girl group is really just the beginning.
They're hoping they can replicate the Dream Academy model over
and over again.
Speaker 4 (21:05):
Yeah, that's the idea of Hive, and right now the
focus is on the US. But like, definitely if this
makes a huge success in the US, they were definitely
differentchise in different cities all around the world.
Speaker 3 (21:21):
You know, the US is such a big focus for
him right now. He bought a house in the US.
He's spending a lot of time in the US. The
Korean business. He feels like he has a team in
place to look after it. But if it works here,
there's no reason why they can't try micro versions of
it or other versions of it in other markets. You know,
whether they'd partner with a local label or how that
would work remains to be seen.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
So he write that the music industry in Korea is
very competitive. Are the other labels in Korea watching what
Bang is doing and maybe going to try to reproduce it.
Speaker 4 (21:53):
We wrote a lot about his friendship with JOYP founder Patino,
and he's actually also like a trying to build out
a new US girl group partnering with one of the
US record labels. And there are a lot of agencies
watching this momentum and trying to follow, like what Hype
is doing. They are setting up their US office and
(22:16):
trying to like partner with Sony Music or like a
warner or like Universal to get involved with the US
music scene after like seeing whether this could become a
big hit, and they will like definitely jump into this
formula and probably like us, record labels would find Crean
(22:38):
partner as well.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
So Lucas, thanks so much for sharing your reporting. Thank you,
thank you, thanks for listening to us here at The
Big Take. It's a daily podcast from Bloomberg and iHeartRadio.
For more shows from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen, and we'd love to
hear from you. Email us questions or comments to Big
(23:00):
Take at Bloomberg dot net. The supervising producer of The
Big Take is Vicky Virgalina. Our senior producer is Katherine Fink.
This episode was produced by Frederica Romanello and edited by
Caitlin Kenney. Our associate producer is Zenebsidiki. Rafael mcili is
our engineer. Our original music was composed by Leo Sidrin.
(23:21):
I'm West Kasova. We'll be back tomorrow with another Big
Take
Hosts And Creators
Sarah Holder
Saleha Mohsin
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.