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Speaker 1: Hyatt's Westkasova. The Big Take is taking a break this week,

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Speaker 1: so here's an episode you might have missed. Even if

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Speaker 1: you're not a teenager, chances are these catchy songs have

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Speaker 1: hit your ears at one time or another.

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Speaker 2: The best muse is.

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Speaker 3: Coming, going like You's not coming more the mocking.

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Speaker 1: There's some of the biggest Korean pop or k pop

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Speaker 1: hits of the last few years from a band called BTS.

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Speaker 1: They've built a huge international following. Their songs have more

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Speaker 1: than thirty two million monthly listeners on Spotify, and the

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Speaker 1: band's fans are extremely devoted. And now the man behind

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Speaker 1: these artists' success has an even more ambitious global plant.

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Speaker 3: That dream stream economy.

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Speaker 1: Bangshi Huck is partnering with Universal Music Group, one of

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Speaker 1: the world's biggest music companies, to try to recreate the

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Speaker 1: success of BTS with a new band outside of Korea.

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Speaker 1: Its members will be young women from all around the world.

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Speaker 4: This is the first US based K pop international girl bands.

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Speaker 3: They have built into this process a lot of steps

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Speaker 3: that they hope will cultivate a fan base before the

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Speaker 3: group even debuts.

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Speaker 1: That's Bloomberg so He Kim and Lucas Shaw They're here

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Speaker 1: to tell us how BTS became so big and whether

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Speaker 1: Bang can do it again. I'm west Kosova today on

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Speaker 1: the Big Take How to Build the Next pop music Sensation.

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Speaker 1: I asked Lucas to tell us a bit about Bang Shihok.

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Speaker 1: He's very well known in South Korea, but those of

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Speaker 1: us in the US and some other parts of the

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Speaker 1: world might not know much about him.

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Speaker 3: So they don't know him per se, but they are

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Speaker 3: very familiar with BTS, which is the group that he

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Speaker 3: helped form and create through his company, which at the

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Speaker 3: time was called Big Hit Entertainment and is now called HIBE.

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Speaker 3: The success of BTS made HIVE the biggest music company

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Speaker 3: in South Korea, made Bang the richest and most powerful

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Speaker 3: music mogul in South Korea, and really, I think is

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Speaker 3: credited by a lot of people with helping to bring

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Speaker 3: K pop to the masses and bring K pop all

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Speaker 3: roun the world. Following the success of BTS, you know,

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Speaker 3: you've seen a lot of different groups come to the

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Speaker 3: US tour Europe, whether that's Black Pink, which is a

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Speaker 3: girl group with a rival company, or twice. We've seen

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Speaker 3: this steady influx of Korean music all over the world,

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Speaker 3: and I think Bong gets a tremendous amount of credit

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Speaker 3: for that, and no small part because of his work

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Speaker 3: with BTS.

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Speaker 1: So he's been in the business a long time and

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Speaker 1: he has this storied career. Can you tell us just

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Speaker 1: about how he got started?

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Speaker 4: He grew up listening to British pop, USC pop and

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Speaker 4: started writing songs inspired by Duran, Duran and Timberland. He

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Speaker 4: kept playing composing music with his band and he won

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Speaker 4: a national song contest in nineteen ninety four. Not long

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Speaker 4: after that, he was scouted by a pop singer, Paktinjong,

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Speaker 4: and both founded JP Entertainment in nineteen ninety seven. Park

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Speaker 4: also spent his childhood in New York and both had

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Speaker 4: the American dream. They had confidence with their huge success

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Speaker 4: at home. Theason based a tough reality because the K

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Speaker 4: pop had not landed in the US and no one

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Speaker 4: actually knew how to monetize or adopt K pop model

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Speaker 4: in the US. The board of JP at the time

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Speaker 4: opposed to their bold ambitions to establish business in the US,

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Speaker 4: and they didn't give the financial support. Park and Bank

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Speaker 4: had to move into a friend's house in LA and

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Speaker 4: live together, so his time in La later not became

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Speaker 4: like valuable lessons for his US ambition. Maybe the major

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Speaker 4: part of his lesson was the attitude toward music was

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Speaker 4: completely different because he worked like a machine while his

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Speaker 4: fellow US producer seemed to enjoy music itself. That completely

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Speaker 4: changed his attitude and he came back to Seoul and

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Speaker 4: left to establish his own company, Bikit Entertainment in two

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Speaker 4: thousand and five.

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Speaker 3: And when Bond came back to South Korea after the

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Speaker 3: time in the US and split from JYP, one of

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Speaker 3: the things that he wanted to do was try to

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Speaker 3: bring some of the American sensibility over to his home country.

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Speaker 3: A lot of that I think was sonically. His initial

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Speaker 3: efforts with Big Hit did not work. He had three

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Speaker 3: to five years of trying to figure out what was

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Speaker 3: the right artist for them, and even in the case

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Speaker 3: of BTS, initially they thought it might be a hip

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Speaker 3: hop group and it was only after they started to

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Speaker 3: develop the group that they decided to go in the

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Speaker 3: pop direction.

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Speaker 1: How did he form BTS because it kind of had

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Speaker 1: an unusual start.

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Speaker 4: So initially Big Kid had no hit songs and they

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Speaker 4: tried to form a hip hop group as like a

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Speaker 4: Lucas mentioned, they were looking into some talented producers, talented

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Speaker 4: as singers and pop stars that they could turn that

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Speaker 4: into a group, a eid group that K pop is

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Speaker 4: known for twenty ten. P Dog the initial producer. He

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Speaker 4: found out a demo tape from a performer.

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Speaker 5: Cantung Hatchet Fields, and he later became a rap monster.

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Speaker 4: The leader of BTS, so like pe Doc gave a

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Speaker 4: demo tape to Bang and the band was so fascinated

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Speaker 4: with this boy, like fifteen year old boy, and he

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Speaker 4: immediately started to scout more members to form a hip

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Speaker 4: hop boy band. They did a nationwide audition and scouted

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Speaker 4: Sugar the second member who can produce songs and basically

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Speaker 4: a rap line member, and Jay Hoppe was a dancer.

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Speaker 6: Hello, Army is ja right here?

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Speaker 4: And he is also a rap line member. They ended

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Speaker 4: those training pool to bring more charming and the more

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Speaker 4: talented passionate members. They formed the seven member boy band

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Speaker 4: at the end after years long training and the survival

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Speaker 4: audition and competition among like thirty trainees. So that was

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Speaker 4: the beginning of of BTS.

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Speaker 3: The crazy thing when you think about BTS and the

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Speaker 3: development of the artists is that they started to form

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Speaker 3: and I think twenty ten. The group doesn't debut until

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Speaker 3: twenty twelve, two and thirteen, so it takes two or

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Speaker 3: three years for them to even form and train. And

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Speaker 3: that's another thing that's very different about the Korean music style,

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Speaker 3: where there's this whole T and D process training and development,

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Speaker 3: where the management companies spend anywhere from a year to

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Speaker 3: several years first picking the members and then training them.

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Speaker 3: And even when BTS debuts, it wasn't immediately bigger and

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Speaker 3: some of the other big acts debuting at the time,

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Speaker 3: it took two three four years for them to start

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Speaker 3: to find a global audience.

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Speaker 1: Lucas and So he report a big reason BTS really

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Speaker 1: did start to break out was because of the way

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Speaker 1: Bong tried to marry what he'd learned in America with

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Speaker 1: the traditional South Korean model.

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Speaker 3: There had been historically in South Korea a lot of

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Speaker 3: restrictions around what acts could do during the training process,

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Speaker 3: how they communicated with the outside world. Everything was very

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Speaker 3: closely managed by the big companies. South Korean management companies

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Speaker 3: exerted a lot more control over their artists than those

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Speaker 3: in the West. That is financial, you know, they take

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Speaker 3: a piece of touring and merchandise and music and all

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Speaker 3: these other areas that US record labels, for example, or

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Speaker 3: US management companies don't always participate, but also just in

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Speaker 3: their day to day behavior at least while the artists

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Speaker 3: are in the training process before they've made their debut.

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Speaker 3: You know, they're not supposed to date. There are severe

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Speaker 3: limits on what they can eat, like no junk food.

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Speaker 3: They're really not supposed to communicate that much about what

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Speaker 3: they're doing with the outside world. And Bong encouraged the

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Speaker 3: members of BTS to communicate openly with their fans.

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Speaker 5: Ah Hi I, Sabrina Rubts.

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Speaker 3: And really build a following, and that coincided with the

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Speaker 3: explosion in Twitter. Facebook was already fairly popular, Instagram came around,

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Speaker 3: YouTube was really getting big, and so one of the

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Speaker 3: novelties of BTS and one of the things where they've

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Speaker 3: been really a pioneer in, is building these ardent online

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Speaker 3: fan bases, some of it through sort of your traditional

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Speaker 3: American social media channels, but then also in a way

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Speaker 3: that is very kind of uniquely Korean or at least

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Speaker 3: East Asian, both in terms of the apps that they use.

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Speaker 3: You know, Hibe has its own app called Weavers, and

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Speaker 3: in terms of some of the different fan meetups and interaction.

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Speaker 3: You know, you look at the way that Korean fans

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Speaker 3: kind of support the artists that they love, and it's

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Speaker 3: at another level.

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Speaker 5: BTS to you guys every day. Well anyway home.

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Speaker 2: For me, BTS came into my life when I needed

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Speaker 2: when I needed them the most, and they saved me

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Speaker 2: from the process. So when BTS came out, their sound

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Speaker 2: was really different compared to the groups that were out,

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Speaker 2: and I was instantly like, this is really cool, this

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Speaker 2: is really different. The dancing was great, they were really cute,

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Speaker 2: and the music was really fun.

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Speaker 3: One of the few US artists who has anything close

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Speaker 3: to it or comparable is Taylor Swift. A lot of

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Speaker 3: what Taylor Swift has done in the last three to

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Speaker 3: five years is in many ways modeled off of what

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Speaker 3: Bong did with BTS.

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Speaker 1: When we come back Bond's plan for a new global

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Speaker 1: music group. It may have taken BTS years of training

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Speaker 1: and development before making their debut, but as we know,

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Speaker 1: they've since become a huge hit group. They have number

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Speaker 1: one singles all around the world. I asked Lucas and

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Speaker 1: so he to tell us.

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Speaker 3: How that happened in the Internet era. So much happens

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Speaker 3: with momentum, and so like BTS develops a following in

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Speaker 3: South Korea and it gets really big in Southeast Asia

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Speaker 3: and across Asia where K pop was already huge, and

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Speaker 3: then it just for a whole post of different reasons.

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Speaker 3: This fan base sort of propels it to fandom everywhere else,

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Speaker 3: and once a few people start buying in, they become

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Speaker 3: sort of part of a movement. It's almost like a meme.

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Speaker 3: But they had music that people really connected with.

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Speaker 4: Their songs and their messages and their communications with fans

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Speaker 4: were so powerful because they were talking about self love

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Speaker 4: and empowerment of the youth. It was a very aligned

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Speaker 4: with the UNS and to support youth. That also helped

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Speaker 4: like a BTS to make a speech at the UN

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Speaker 4: and like a White House, and they were the front

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Speaker 4: line speaker for youth and Asians.

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Speaker 5: We've been partnering with Unstuff's in Violence program to protect

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Speaker 5: children and young people all over the world from violence,

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Speaker 5: and our fans have become a major part of this campaign.

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Speaker 5: With their action and with their enthusiasm, we truly have

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Speaker 5: the best fans in the world.

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Speaker 1: BTS was on top, but Bob began to think about

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Speaker 1: just how long that would last.

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Speaker 3: Bob was looking at his business at the peak of

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Speaker 3: BTS's power and fame sort of twenty eighteen, twenty nineteen

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Speaker 3: into twenty twenty. He knew that he needed to figure

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Speaker 3: out sort of what the next step was for his company,

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Speaker 3: how he was going to diversify it, both because pop

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Speaker 3: groups don't last forever. Most of them tend to last

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Speaker 3: sort of like five to seven years. BTS at that

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Speaker 3: point was already almost a decade old. It's now more

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Speaker 3: than a decade old. There was also the issue of

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Speaker 3: the South Korean requirement that men serve in the military.

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Speaker 3: They had gotten that sort of pushed later and later,

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Speaker 3: but he had to assume at some point that the

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Speaker 3: various members would have to serve as they are now,

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Speaker 3: and that would take them off the table for a

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Speaker 3: couple of years.

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Speaker 2: I've been into kpop for almost twenty years, so I

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Speaker 2: always know, especially guide groups, they're going to go to

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Speaker 2: the army, so you know it's coming, but it's still like, ugh, Okay,

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Speaker 2: I'm proud of you for going, because like that's really

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Speaker 2: something strong and admirable. But oh man, the lack of music,

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Speaker 2: the lack of concert's gonna be so hard, and.

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Speaker 3: So he sought out to raise money and expand his

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Speaker 3: business globally. Some of that was necessity and some of

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Speaker 3: that was just he's an ambitious guy. He's very humble,

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Speaker 3: but he wanted to build this company into something bigger

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Speaker 3: and greater. So they went public in twenty twenty raise

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Speaker 3: some money. He went shopping bought a big US music

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Speaker 3: company called Ethical Holdings, which is run by the manager

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Speaker 3: Scooter Braun, best known for his work with Justin Bieber

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Speaker 3: and Ariana Grande during COVID.

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Speaker 6: I got a call and they said, would you be

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Speaker 6: interested in your company joining another company out of Korea?

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Speaker 6: And I had watched BTS and watched Bang from a distance,

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Speaker 6: and I was curious, and I didn't want anyone to know.

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Speaker 6: And I said, sure, let's meet, let's talk. And we

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Speaker 6: started doing weekly zooms, telling no one about them.

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Speaker 3: He went and bought another record label with Scooter Braun.

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Speaker 3: He tried to buy sort of one of his biggest

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Speaker 3: competitors in Korea. And at the same time that he

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Speaker 3: was sort of buying these assets that would diversify the business,

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Speaker 3: he was building up some technology and he started to

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Speaker 3: try and develop more acts now he's developed a couple

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Speaker 3: of big acts that are local to South Korea, but

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Speaker 3: he also had this vision for applying the model that

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Speaker 3: they'd used with BTS and really across South Korea using

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Speaker 3: that training and development process, but also cultivating that extreme

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Speaker 3: fandom with a global group, and for help with that,

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Speaker 3: he turned to Universal Music Group, the biggest music group

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Speaker 3: in the world.

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Speaker 1: With Universal Bang as attempting to build out a truly

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Speaker 1: global girl group with a massive publicity and social media

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Speaker 1: campaign around the contest to choose its members. They're calling

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Speaker 1: it the Debut Dream Academy.

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Speaker 3: Dream Swap.

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Speaker 4: Dream Dream Academy. This is the first US based K

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Speaker 4: pop international girl band, so there are girls from twelve countries.

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Speaker 4: It's not all Asian pop girl band that used to be,

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Speaker 4: so this is a truly an international girl band that

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Speaker 4: Hibe wants to make it as a US like a

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Speaker 4: focus and they would have become a more global approach,

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Speaker 4: not only like attract K pop bands, but to the

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Speaker 4: pop fans in general. They are doing this month long

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Speaker 4: competition and audition programs online.

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Speaker 1: Each step will be a gateway to the next.

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Speaker 3: For three rounds of eliminations leading to a live finale.

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Speaker 3: On November seventeen. They have built into this process a

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Speaker 3: lot of steps that they hope will cultivate a fan

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Speaker 3: base before the group even debuts. So they cast a

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Speaker 3: wide net for this casting process that took almost a year.

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Speaker 3: I think they said that they had more than one

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Speaker 3: hundred twenty thousand applications. More than seventy thousand of those

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Speaker 3: came in within the first like ten days. They did

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Speaker 3: some in person casting calls throughout the world. They narrow

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Speaker 3: that down to one hundred or so people, and then

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Speaker 3: they've spent the last year training them and winnowing down

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Speaker 3: the group in the US. During this competition, you know,

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Speaker 3: they unveiled the twenty finalists at this event in Santa

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Speaker 3: Monica in late August. For our final limitation, we invite

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Speaker 3: Allia And since then they've been uploading videos with different

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Speaker 3: missions and competitions. Every woman in the group has a

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Speaker 3: video on YouTube TikTok and weavers introducing themselves, and then

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Speaker 3: they have different videos of different challenges and different videos

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Speaker 3: of behind the scenes. And then when the women get

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Speaker 3: sent home, they do a goodbye video, well s.

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Speaker 1: It's been a journey, it'sn't crazy. Almost everybody voted me out.

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Speaker 5: Maybe they're afraid.

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Speaker 3: Whatever got except it's this whole different methodology for trying

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Speaker 3: to cultivate a fan base. I will say that there

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Speaker 3: is a part of me and a part I think

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Speaker 3: even of some of the people involved in this process,

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Speaker 3: who wonder if it all feels a little contrived. You know,

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Speaker 3: you think about something like BTS and in retrospect it

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Speaker 3: seems like banghad this master plan right, But a lot

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Speaker 3: of it is just sort of kismet and right place,

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Speaker 3: right time, right messaging, and it just works. It's always

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Speaker 3: much harder to sort of manufacture that concept. Like New Genes,

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Speaker 3: which is a different group that they have has done

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Speaker 3: very well, but they didn't set out with this exact process.

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Speaker 3: John Jannik, the head of Interscope, Geffen A and M,

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Speaker 3: he told me that when he first got pitched this idea,

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Speaker 3: he had reservations about it, but the more he got

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Speaker 3: to know Bong and the more they talked about it,

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Speaker 3: he just bought into this guy's vision and so.

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Speaker 1: He is it working? Are people watching the YouTube videos

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Speaker 1: and Netflix documentary voting online? Are they participating in the hype?

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Speaker 4: There are at least one hundred thousands of events on

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Speaker 4: like a weavers, like voting online, and they are commenting

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Speaker 4: on like every performance of these girls training programs, illumination programs,

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Speaker 4: so they are supporting girls and at the same time

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Speaker 4: they are like a selecting girls who should become the

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Speaker 4: final members. So they're on TikTok, weavers and YouTube supporting

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Speaker 4: the band's debut. And I would say, well, they are

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Speaker 4: already like engaging with this band event. And one of

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Speaker 4: the biggest merits to do this audition program is that

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Speaker 4: they already like have the huge fan base online and global.

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Speaker 4: When they come out as a band, they can just

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Speaker 4: go straight to like a concert and like a music

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Speaker 4: live shows when they're ready, and fans.

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Speaker 1: Will be there when we come back. Will the K

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Speaker 1: pop model work in the rest of the world. We've

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Speaker 1: heard about Bond's success creating bts and other popular bands,

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Speaker 1: so he and Lucas say that one of the most

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Speaker 1: important things for this new group is to quickly build

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Speaker 1: a fan base big enough to fill stadiums for their concerts.

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Speaker 4: Once they become big band, like a K pop band,

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Speaker 4: they can tour globally like a US Dubai, La and

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Speaker 4: Soul and Tokyo everywhere in the world, and then there

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Speaker 4: would like a collect money from the kvivers, like from

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Speaker 4: merchandise as stuff fans would love to buy.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean the earnings are going to so depend

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Speaker 3: on how popular they are, right, most musicians don't make

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Speaker 3: a lot of money from the recording of their music anymore.

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Speaker 3: The people at the very very top do. But for

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Speaker 3: the most part, even those big stars make a lot

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Speaker 3: more money from the tour. One thing that tends to

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Speaker 3: be different about some of the bigger K pop groups,

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Speaker 3: I think they have preferred for doing fewer but bigger shows.

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Speaker 3: They come to the US and they'll do multiple nights

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Speaker 3: in LA at a stadium or at an arena, big venue,

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Speaker 3: but they're not doing forty shows in fifty five nights.

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Speaker 3: But each show that they do, the gross is higher

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Speaker 3: because it's a bigger venue, because they sell so much merchandise.

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Speaker 1: So this international girl group is really just the beginning.

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Speaker 1: They're hoping they can replicate the Dream Academy model over

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Speaker 1: and over again.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, that's the idea of Hive, and right now the

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Speaker 4: focus is on the US. But like, definitely if this

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Speaker 4: makes a huge success in the US, they were definitely

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Speaker 4: differentchise in different cities all around the world.

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Speaker 3: You know, the US is such a big focus for

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Speaker 3: him right now. He bought a house in the US.

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Speaker 3: He's spending a lot of time in the US. The

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Speaker 3: Korean business. He feels like he has a team in

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Speaker 3: place to look after it. But if it works here,

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Speaker 3: there's no reason why they can't try micro versions of

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Speaker 3: it or other versions of it in other markets. You know,

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Speaker 3: whether they'd partner with a local label or how that

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Speaker 3: would work remains to be seen.

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Speaker 1: So he write that the music industry in Korea is

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Speaker 1: very competitive. Are the other labels in Korea watching what

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Speaker 1: Bang is doing and maybe going to try to reproduce it.

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Speaker 4: We wrote a lot about his friendship with JOYP founder Patino,

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Speaker 4: and he's actually also like a trying to build out

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Speaker 4: a new US girl group partnering with one of the

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Speaker 4: US record labels. And there are a lot of agencies

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Speaker 4: watching this momentum and trying to follow, like what Hype

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Speaker 4: is doing. They are setting up their US office and

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Speaker 4: trying to like partner with Sony Music or like a

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Speaker 4: warner or like Universal to get involved with the US

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Speaker 4: music scene after like seeing whether this could become a

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Speaker 4: big hit, and they will like definitely jump into this

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Speaker 4: formula and probably like us, record labels would find Crean

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Speaker 4: partner as well.

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Speaker 1: So Lucas, thanks so much for sharing your reporting. Thank you,

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Speaker 1: thank you, thanks for listening to us here at The

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Speaker 1: Big Take. It's a daily podcast from Bloomberg and iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 1: hear from you. Email us questions or comments to Big

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Speaker 1: Take at Bloomberg dot net. The supervising producer of The

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Speaker 1: Big Take is Vicky Virgalina. Our senior producer is Katherine Fink.

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Speaker 1: This episode was produced by Frederica Romanello and edited by

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Speaker 1: Caitlin Kenney. Our associate producer is Zenebsidiki. Rafael mcili is

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Speaker 1: our engineer. Our original music was composed by Leo Sidrin.

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Speaker 1: I'm West Kasova. We'll be back tomorrow with another Big

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Speaker 1: Take