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Speaker 1: Even if you're not a teenager, chances are these catchy

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

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Speaker 2: The best is.

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Speaker 1: Coming going like a stuffing.

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Speaker 3: The mona.

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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 4: A 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 internastrial 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: Bong 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

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Speaker 1: Shie Hook. He's very well known in South Korea, but

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

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Speaker 1: of the world might not know much about.

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Speaker 3: Him, so they don't know him per se, but they

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

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

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

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Speaker 3: called HIBE. The successive BTS made HIVE the biggest music

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 3: all around 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 US,

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

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

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

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Speaker 3: I think Bond gets a tremendous amount of credit for that,

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Speaker 3: and no small part because of his work 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 USh 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 JYP 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 days on base the tough reality because the

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

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

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Speaker 4: model in the US. The board of JIP at the

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Speaker 4: time opposed to their bold ambitions to establish business in

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

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

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Speaker 4: La and live together, so his time in La later

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Speaker 4: not became like valuable lessons for his US ambition. Maybe

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

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Speaker 4: music was completely different because he worked like a machine

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Speaker 4: while his fellow US producer seemed to enjoy music itself.

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Speaker 4: That completely changed his attitude and he came back to

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Speaker 4: Seoul and left JP to establish his own company, Biked

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Speaker 4: Entertainment in two 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 the American sensibility over to his

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Speaker 3: home country. A lot of that I think was sonically.

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Speaker 3: His initial efforts with Big Hit did not work. He

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Speaker 3: had three to five years of trying to figure out

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

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Speaker 3: the case of BTS, initially they thought it might be

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Speaker 3: a hip hop group and it was only after they

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

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Speaker 3: in the 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: singers and pop stars that they could turn that into

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Speaker 4: a group, a idol group, that K pop is known for.

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Speaker 4: In twenty ten, P Dogs the initial producer. He found

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Speaker 4: out a demo tape from a performer.

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Speaker 2: We're too Young Hatchet.

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Speaker 4: And he later became a rap monster. The leader of BTS,

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Speaker 4: so like p Doc gave a demo tape to band,

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Speaker 4: and the band was so fascinated with this boy, like

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Speaker 4: fifteen year old boy, and he immediately started to scout

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Speaker 4: more members to form a hip hop boy band. They

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Speaker 4: did a nationwide audition and scouted Sugar the second member

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Speaker 4: who can produce songs and basically a rap line member,

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Speaker 4: and Jay Hoppe was a dancer.

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Speaker 5: Hello, Army is ja right here?

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Speaker 4: And he is also a rep line member. They expanded

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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 Oded was

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Speaker 4: the beginning of of BTS.

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Speaker 3: That's the crazy thing when you think about BTS and

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Speaker 3: the development of the artist is that they started to

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

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

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

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Speaker 3: And that's another thing that's very different about the Korean

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Speaker 3: music style, where there's this whole T and D process

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Speaker 3: training and development, where the management companies spend anywhere from

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Speaker 3: a year to several years first picking the members and

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Speaker 3: then training them. And even when BTS debuts, it wasn't

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Speaker 3: immediately bigger than some of the other big acts debuting

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Speaker 3: at the time. It took two, three four years for

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Speaker 3: them to start 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 2: Ah Hi Hi Sabrina Rubts and really build a following.

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Speaker 3: And that coincided with the explosion in Twitter. Facebook was

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Speaker 3: already fairly popular, Instagram came around, YouTube was really getting big,

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Speaker 3: and so one of the novelties of BTS and one

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Speaker 3: of the things where they've been really a pioneer in

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Speaker 3: is building these ardent online fan bases, some of it

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Speaker 3: through sort of your traditional American social media channels, but

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Speaker 3: then also in a way that is very kind of

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Speaker 3: uniquely Korean or at least East Asian, both in terms

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Speaker 3: of the apps that they use. You know, Hibe has

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Speaker 3: its own app called Weavers, and in terms of some

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Speaker 3: of the different fan meetups and interaction. You know, you

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Speaker 3: look at the way that Korean fans kind of support

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Speaker 3: the artists that they love, and it's at another level.

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Speaker 4: To you, guys, am I every day home for me.

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Speaker 6: BTS came into my life when I needed, when I

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Speaker 6: needed them the most, and the save me from the process.

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Speaker 6: So BTS came out. Their sound was really different compared

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Speaker 6: to the groups that were out, and I was instantly like,

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Speaker 6: this is really cool, this is really different. The dancing

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Speaker 6: was great, they were really cute, and the music was

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Speaker 6: 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 Bang'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 how that happened.

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Speaker 3: In the Internet era, so much happens with momentum and

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Speaker 3: so like, BTS develops the following in South Korea and

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Speaker 3: it gets really big in Southeast Asia and across Asia

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Speaker 3: where K pop was already huge, and then it just

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Speaker 3: for a whole post of different reasons. This fan base

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Speaker 3: sort of propels it to fandom everywhere else, and once

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Speaker 3: a few people start buying in, they become sort of

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

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Speaker 3: 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 like youth. It was a very aligned

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Speaker 4: with the UN's ambitions 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 2: We been partnering with Yunisuff's Inviolence program to protect children

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Speaker 2: and young people all over the world from violence, and

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Speaker 2: our fans have become a major part of this campaign.

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Speaker 2: With their action and with their enthusiasm, we truly have

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Speaker 2: 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 sort of power and fame, sort of twenty eighteen,

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Speaker 3: twenty nineteen into twenty twenty, he knew that he needed

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Speaker 3: to figure out sort of what the next step was

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Speaker 3: for his company, how he was going to diversify it,

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Speaker 3: both because pop groups don't last forever. Most of them

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Speaker 3: tend to last sort of like five to seven years.

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Speaker 3: BTS at that point was already almost a decade old.

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Speaker 3: It's now more than a decade old. There was also

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Speaker 3: the issue of the South Korean requirement that men serve

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Speaker 3: in the military. They had gotten that sort of pushed

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Speaker 3: later and later, but he had to assume at some

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Speaker 3: point that the various members would have to serve as

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Speaker 3: they are now, and that would take them off the

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Speaker 3: table for a couple of years.

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Speaker 6: I've been in to cap up for almost twenty years,

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Speaker 6: so I always know, especially guide groups, they're going to

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Speaker 6: go to the army, so you know it's coming, but

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Speaker 6: it's still like, ugh, okay, I'm proud of you for going,

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Speaker 6: because like that's really something strong and admirable. But oh man,

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Speaker 6: the lack of music, the lack of concert's gonna be

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Speaker 6: so hard.

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Speaker 3: And so he sought out to raise money and expand

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

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Speaker 3: of 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 and bought a big US

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

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

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Speaker 3: Bieber and Ariana Grande during COVID.

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Speaker 5: I got a call and they said, would you be

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Speaker 5: interested in your company joining another company out of Korea?

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Speaker 5: And I had watched BTS and watched Bang from a distance,

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Speaker 5: and I was curious, and I didn't want anyone to know,

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Speaker 5: and I said, sure, let's meet, let's talk. And we

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Speaker 5: 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 is 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 Dream and.

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

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Speaker 4: K pop international girl bands, so there are girls from

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Speaker 4: twelve countries. It's not all Asian K pop girl band

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Speaker 4: that used to be, so this is a truly an

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Speaker 4: international girl band that Hibe wants to make it as

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Speaker 4: a US like a focused and they would become a

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Speaker 4: more global approach, not only like attract K pop bands

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Speaker 4: but to the pop fans in general. They are doing

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Speaker 4: this month long competition and audition programs online. Each step

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Speaker 4: will be a gateway to the next for three rounds

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Speaker 4: of eliminations leading to the live finale on a Nova

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Speaker 4: for seventeen.

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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, So they cast a wide net for

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Speaker 3: this casting process that took almost a year. I think

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Speaker 3: they said that they had more than one hundred and

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

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

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

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Speaker 3: down to one hundred or so people, and then they've

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

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

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

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Speaker 3: in late August.

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Speaker 5: For our final limitation, we invite.

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

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Speaker 3: missions and competitions. Every year, the woman in the group

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

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

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Speaker 3: different videos of behind the scenes. And then when the

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Speaker 3: women get sent home, they do a goodbye video.

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Speaker 1: We listen, it's been a journey. It isn't crazy. Almost

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Speaker 1: everybody voted me out.

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Speaker 5: Maybe they're afraid whatever.

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Speaker 3: Except it's this whole different methodology for trying to cultivate

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 3: is a different group that they have, has done very well,

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

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Speaker 3: the head of Interscope Caffin A and M, he told

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: So he is it working. Our people watching the YouTube

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Speaker 1: videos and Netflix documentary voting online, are they participating in

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Speaker 1: the hype.

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

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

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

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Speaker 4: illumination programs, so they are supporting girls and at the

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Speaker 4: same time they are like selecting girls who should become

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

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Speaker 4: supporting the band's debuts. And I would say, well, they

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

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

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Speaker 4: that they already like have the huge fan base online

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Speaker 4: and global. When they come out as a band, they

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Speaker 4: can just go straight to like a concert and like

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Speaker 4: a music 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 band'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 k webs, like

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Speaker 4: from merchandises, stuff bands 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 hype 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: make the huge success in the US, they would 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 him,

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Speaker 3: right now he bought a house in the US. He's

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Speaker 3: spending a lot of time in the US the Korean business.

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Speaker 3: He feels like he has a team in place to

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Speaker 3: look after it. But if it works here, there's no

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Speaker 3: reason why they can't try micro versions of it or

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

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

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Speaker 3: 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 JIP founder Patino,

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

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

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

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Speaker 4: this momentum and trying to follow, like what Hype is doing.

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Speaker 4: They are setting up their US office and trying to

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Speaker 4: like partner with Sony Music or like a Warner or

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Speaker 4: like Universal to get involved with the US music scene

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Speaker 4: after like seeing whether this could become a big hit,

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Speaker 4: and they will like definitely jump into this formula and

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Speaker 4: probably like US record labels would find Korean partner as well.

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Speaker 1: Soey 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: For more shows from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

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Speaker 1: or wherever you listen, and we'd love to hear from you.

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Speaker 1: Email us questions or comments to Big Take at Bloomberg

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Speaker 1: dot net. The supervising producer of The Big Take is

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Speaker 1: Vicky Virgalina. Our senior producer is Catherine Fink. This episode

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Speaker 1: was produced by Frederica Romanello and edited by Caitlin Kenny.

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Speaker 1: Our associate producer is Zenobsidiki. Raphael mcili is our engineer.

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Speaker 1: Our original music was composed by Leo Sidron. I'm west Kasova.

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Speaker 1: We'll be back tomorrow with another Big Take