Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: I love K pop because they are, by far, I
Speaker 2: would say, the coolest version of our generation.
Speaker 3: Bloomberg reporter so he Can has been covering Korean pop
Speaker 3: or K pop for nearly a decade as a journalist,
Speaker 3: but she's been a fan for much longer than that.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Literally, I grew up with K pop, so he vividly
Speaker 3: remembers her first K pop obsession.
Speaker 2: So it was nineteen ninety seven when a trio girl
Speaker 2: band called Ses come out of Nowhere. I first discovered
Speaker 2: them from TV and three pretty young teenage girl gooves
Speaker 2: were singing and dancing on a song called I'm Your Girl.
Speaker 2: The song was mixed them a little bit of a
Speaker 2: pop and RMB produced by SM Entertainment, and it completely
Speaker 2: blew my mind. So I bought cast tapes up there
Speaker 2: albums and gathered some of my friends practice their dance
Speaker 2: routines and performed at school events, and that became my
Speaker 2: annual thing.
Speaker 3: Recently, so He started noticing something unusual in the K
Speaker 3: pop songs getting released. A lot of their lyrics were
Speaker 3: in English, not Korean. So she did what any Bloomberg
Speaker 3: journalists would do. She and her colleagues started collecting data.
Speaker 3: In this instance, they conducted a very fun sounding survey.
Speaker 3: They analyzed every single K pop song released since nineteen
Speaker 3: ninety five that included hits like BTS's Butter Small Drag,
Speaker 3: but like Criminal and Black Pinks Killed This Love and
Speaker 3: I found out something pretty surprising.
Speaker 2: So almost half the K pop songs released this year
Speaker 2: had the majority and lyrics, and this is the first
Speaker 2: time in K pop's history like having a lot of
Speaker 2: English the lyrics and English songs.
Speaker 3: So he says that this push into English hasn't been
Speaker 3: an accident.
Speaker 2: And having more English lyrics is becoming a new norm
Speaker 2: for Korean idol groups because their songs are actively drawing
Speaker 2: more audiences not only in the US, but in some
Speaker 2: regions in Southeast Asia where a lot of K pop
Speaker 2: content like dance challenges become viral on TikTok and YouTube,
Speaker 2: and most of them are using English as a main tool.
Speaker 3: But if you take out the Korean, you're left with
Speaker 3: a glaring question, what's K pop without the k Welcome
Speaker 3: to The Big Take Asia from Bloomberg News.
Speaker 1: I'm Sarah Holder.
Speaker 3: Every week we take you inside some of the world's
Speaker 3: biggest and most powerful economies and the market's tycoons and
Speaker 3: businesses the drive this ever shifting region. Today on the show,
Speaker 3: after years of meteoric growth, k pop is at a crossroads.
Speaker 3: Can the genre grow its international audience without losing the
Speaker 3: key components that made it a global phenomenon in the
Speaker 3: first place?
Speaker 1: So today, so what does the K pop industry look like?
Speaker 3: Who are the key main players that we need to
Speaker 3: know before we understand this world?
Speaker 2: So there are so called four big companies, SM, High,
Speaker 2: YG and JYP. SM is known as the pioneer of
Speaker 2: K pop, which was established three decades ago. HIH, the
Speaker 2: agency behind BTS, is the youngest one, but the biggest
Speaker 2: in terms of the market value. And why just the
Speaker 2: management company behind Black Pink and JYP is the agency
Speaker 2: behind Twice and Straight Kids.
Speaker 1: And what's the size of the K pop industry?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 1: How much money does it make?
Speaker 2: The size of the K pop industry is estimated to
Speaker 2: be about like ten billion dollars according to Korea Creative
Speaker 2: Content Agency, and the amount of the K pop export
Speaker 2: was about one billion dollars last year.
Speaker 3: Exporting K pop has been a pretty good business. Bloomberg
Speaker 3: reporters spoke to fans in Los Angeles outside of a
Speaker 3: concert for the K pop Fan Rise, who said they
Speaker 3: spent thousands of dollars a year on merchandise, concert tickets,
Speaker 3: and special events where they could meet members of their
Speaker 3: favorite groups.
Speaker 4: Probably a six thousand budget maybe if not more, depending
Speaker 4: on how many concerts I go to. I mean just
Speaker 4: say about this trip, like the ticket light and everything,
Speaker 4: maybe like five hundred maybe each just for like today.
Speaker 3: For me, I would say maybe about two or three thousands.
Speaker 2: And this is not something like unusual for kpop fans
Speaker 2: that we'll see a lot of, like a K pop
Speaker 2: fans who are based in LA or Latin America, where
Speaker 2: like friends who want to travel more to follow their
Speaker 2: biggest artists.
Speaker 1: What do fans say about why they love K pop
Speaker 1: so much?
Speaker 2: Well, I would say K pop is total package of
Speaker 2: modern arts. It's not just about songs, their fashion, computer
Speaker 2: graphic designs in their music videos and futuristic style and
Speaker 2: the sounds which all comes together. But what makes fans
Speaker 2: feel more connected to their stars and K pop groups?
Speaker 2: I think it's song's message and the K pop star's
Speaker 2: attitude toward fans. K pop artists are trained how to
Speaker 2: use social media and how not to disappoint fans who
Speaker 2: believe in them.
Speaker 3: But the global fan base for groups like Rise Bts
Speaker 3: and Black Pink are in some ways the exception.
Speaker 2: So he K pop's largest consumer country is still South Korea,
Speaker 2: and the fifty million and population is shrinking and aging
Speaker 2: faster than any places in the world. So the core
Speaker 2: consumer group teams to early twenties will be downsizing for
Speaker 2: the next decade.
Speaker 3: And an aging South Korean population isn't the only recent
Speaker 3: challenge for the industry. South Korea's decision to allow a
Speaker 3: US missile defense system to be installed in the country
Speaker 3: has led to tensions with the Chinese government, and that's
Speaker 3: impacting Chinese fans.
Speaker 2: That prompted some sort of like boycotts and ban other
Speaker 2: K pop bands in China. There was no official statement
Speaker 2: from China that they are going to ban K pop
Speaker 2: industry like suddenly, K pop groups and K pop companies
Speaker 2: couldn't arrange any events and concerts in mainland China.
Speaker 3: All of this might have been part of the reason
Speaker 3: why sales of physical K pop albums to China have
Speaker 3: plummeted this year.
Speaker 2: There are a lot of like hypothetic copieces around that,
Speaker 2: but there is no like a certain or clear answer
Speaker 2: for that. But first of all, like a Chinese consumers,
Speaker 2: they would still want to buy K pop pop albums
Speaker 2: for sure, but there has been a rumor that Chinese
Speaker 2: wholesalers stopped buying or stopped ordering work sales because of
Speaker 2: some sort of like measures that Chinese government has made.
Speaker 3: And that's why today, despite the passionate fans and the
Speaker 3: billions in revenue, K pop has arrived at this crossroads.
Speaker 2: Obviously, in order to make a lot of money, K
Speaker 2: pop needs to transform their business model to make a
Speaker 2: sustainable growth for the next decade and reach out to
Speaker 2: a wider fan base. So it's K pop's mission to
Speaker 2: reach out to a bigger global market for a survival plan.
Speaker 3: To do that, some of the industry's biggest players are
Speaker 3: arguing for a radical transformation.
Speaker 2: So High founder punk she how he's declaring it's time
Speaker 2: to take the K out of K pop.
Speaker 3: Coming up after the break, how K pop is reinventing
Speaker 3: itself and why this is causing something of an identity
Speaker 3: crisis for the industry. One way for K pop groups
Speaker 3: to appeal to a more global audience is to release
Speaker 3: songs with more English lyrics, which is something Bloomberg reporter
Speaker 3: so He Kim and her colleagues have confirmed is already happening.
Speaker 3: Another strategy is for existing big name K pop groups
Speaker 3: to team up with some familiar names in the international
Speaker 3: pop community.
Speaker 2: For example, BTS John Kook's latest album was produced by
Speaker 2: Scooter Brown and executives and producers in La and Lisa
Speaker 2: from Black Pink. She worked with Sony Entertainment's RCA. She
Speaker 2: released a new song called the rock Star.
Speaker 4: Glsis, a non adash of Rockstorm make your Favorite single launch.
Speaker 2: She invited a lot of like a Thaie talent and
Speaker 2: creators and musicians to get involved in her project. So
Speaker 2: it's a multinational collaboration that can be just call it
Speaker 2: as a Korean.
Speaker 3: Pop But K pop companies are also launching new groups
Speaker 3: from scratch using their tried and true formula for recruiting, molding,
Speaker 3: and debuting talent.
Speaker 2: The core process hasn't changed, but there are more auditions worldwide,
Speaker 2: language lessons during training period, and tons of digital marketing
Speaker 2: to promote the groups globally from the get go.
Speaker 3: Getting these groups concert ready is time consuming and expensive.
Speaker 2: It typically costs about like three to five million to
Speaker 2: create an idol group, but there are some cases that
Speaker 2: the costs exceed the ten million dollars these days.
Speaker 3: So he got to meet one of Korea's most promising
Speaker 3: next generation K pop groups last month at SM Entertainment's
Speaker 3: headquarters in Seoul. The band is called Rise. They're the
Speaker 3: ones those fans in LA were lining up to see.
Speaker 2: The boy band is the latest idol group created by
Speaker 2: SM Entertainment. Their music was based on the house music
Speaker 2: produced by creatives based in US and Europe, and they
Speaker 2: also got trained by Western hip hop choreographers for new songs,
Speaker 2: so that resonates more with general audiences. But at the
Speaker 2: same time, they kept the core value of K pops
Speaker 2: such as empowering messages, emotional sounds, and phantom communications, so
Speaker 2: they look very fresh but something very familiar to K
Speaker 2: pop fans.
Speaker 3: Meanwhile, Hibe, the label behind BTS, is trying something even
Speaker 3: more experimental with an all girl K pop group called
Speaker 3: kats Eye. They released their first single called Debut on
Speaker 3: YouTube and on the group's website a little over three
Speaker 3: weeks ago.
Speaker 1: I don't ne know on to Trina Bourgeoisie.
Speaker 3: I'll set them oh just how to make a scene,
Speaker 3: just me mess much.
Speaker 1: As you can hear.
Speaker 3: Their lyrics are in English, but that's not the only
Speaker 3: thing that's different about the group.
Speaker 2: So among the members, there's just only one Korean member,
Speaker 2: and their main stage is not Soul or South Korea.
Speaker 2: Their main stage is now US and Hollywood.
Speaker 3: In La Katsi's debut video has already been viewed over
Speaker 3: three point seven million times. Even with those numbers, so
Speaker 3: he says that doesn't necessarily mean the group is going
Speaker 3: to take the world by storm.
Speaker 2: It's early to say whether they will be successful, but
Speaker 2: definitely it's a very new thing for the K pop
Speaker 2: industry because it's a total collaboration with the US record
Speaker 2: label to create a idol group but.
Speaker 3: With only one Korean member, mostly in English lyrics, and an
Speaker 3: American home base. I asked, so he what makes Kat's
Speaker 3: Eye k pop at all? It's the question that's at
Speaker 3: the heart of this new era for K pop. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it's a billion pellar question. Denying we're abandoning k where
Speaker 3: Koreans could be risky if the new groups fail to
Speaker 3: appeal to both of K pop fans and general music audiences.
Speaker 3: But if any new projects find a magical way to
Speaker 3: keep the value of K pop and make a global appeal.
Speaker 3: I'm pretty sure they will rewrite the pop history.
Speaker 1: For the fans.
Speaker 3: Bloomberg spoke to outside of that Rise concert in La.
Speaker 3: The Embrace of English lyrics and k Pop got a
Speaker 3: mixed review.
Speaker 4: Vibe it's giving me. It is kind of hit or miss.
Speaker 2: I do somewhat like all the created K pop English songs.
Speaker 3: I just don't heard the one, just because that's already rooted.
Speaker 2: That's where the culture is.
Speaker 4: That's what they should be. I like to be able
Speaker 4: to sing the words out if it doesn't matter, like
Speaker 4: what language is, as long as it has like a message,
Speaker 4: the meaning I like.
Speaker 3: I don't know. They're so, he says, it's too early
Speaker 3: to tell if K pop's new strategy will lead to
Speaker 3: the next BTS, but the industry is setting its sites
Speaker 3: even higher.
Speaker 2: Attempting like Coachella is not enough for them at all.
Speaker 2: So they want to go stadiums for like the size
Speaker 2: of Beyonce and Taylor, Shift and Coldplay. Their dream now
Speaker 2: is to perform at the super Bowl. Hot Time show.
Speaker 3: A black pink BTS super Bowl show could be dynamite.
Speaker 1: That's it.
Speaker 3: For this episode of The Big Take, a podcast from
Speaker 3: Bloomberg News, I'm Sarah Holder. This episode was produced by
Speaker 3: Thomas Lou and Alex Zugura.
Speaker 1: Who also mixed this episode.
Speaker 3: It was edited by Stacy Vanick Smith. It was fact
Speaker 3: checked by Naomi and Thomas Lou. There was additional reporting
Speaker 3: by Jin Wu and Jeremy Linn. Our senior producers are
Speaker 3: Naomi Shaven and Kim Gittleson. Our senior editor is Elizabeth Ponso.
Speaker 3: Nicole Beemsterbor is our executive producer. Sage Bauman is Bloomberg's
Speaker 3: head of Podcasts. Please follow and review The Big Take
Speaker 3: Asia wherever you listen to podcasts. It helps new listeners
Speaker 3: find the show. See you next time.