Ilgan Sports and distribution companies delve into the issue of 'digital sajaegi'

[frantastic.livejournal.com]

The reality behind 'digital sajaegi' has finally been exposed. Ilgan Sports was able to pick up an exclusive copy of a report written by a large-scale distribution company on their response to handling digital sajaegi. The report contains information regarding the main brokers who are the leaders of the digital sajaegi phenomenon, as well as the related expenses and the legal issues involved.

With the report containing as much information as it does, we predict a considerable amount of controversy to hit the music industry soon. Songs that were targeted to be abusing the sajaegi system include a number of the biggest hit tracks of the year, making it a bigger shock to come. Hit tracks are essentially not becoming hits through the love of fans but through outright manipulation.

▶ Rookies spend upwards of $500,000 USD, established artists around $300,000 on sajaegi

For a while, 'digital sajaegi' has been a well known secret of the industry, with tons of talk about certain idol singers hitting all kills on the digital charts with sajaegi. According to investigations, there are about 3~5 brokers active in the country. For $500,000 USD, rookie singers can maintain a top 20 position on the best digital charts for up to 4-5 days. Artists with more popularity/public recognition pay about $300,000 for the same conditions. Most of the brokers used to be viral marketers, so they're familiar with how real time charts on portal sites are worked.

▶ How does 'sajaegi' happen?

The report contains a detailed explanation of the patterns used behind sajaegi. They'll first create or grab hold of a number of accounts and purchase a large amount of digital streaming coupons. Brokers will then wait for the right timing such as early morning when the rest of the public is asleep and use those accounts to stream the song and create traffic. The song can be streamed thousands of times at once in this manner.

Because songs are an average of 3 minutes long, one account can only stream up to 480 times a day. However, according to investigations, there have been accounts found with over 10,000 streams a day through abusing the system with a hack/mask device emulator program.

▶ Which singers got popular through sajaegi then?

Team 'A' used sajaegi to jump from 160th to 28th on a real time chart while team 'B' jumped from 260th to 30th. According to the report, another singer who released a summer comeback hit track has also been found to have abused the system. Despite the singer's popularity, the singer wasn't able to reflect that popularity onto the digital charts, leading the singer's company to give them the extra push. One account was found to have streamed the song over 3,000 times a day, easily helping the song land at the 1st place position.

The sajaegi effect on the digital charts will of course transition over to the music programs that use the ranking system.

Distribution companies are coming up with a response to this controversy and will be launching legal investigations into the brokers and the entertainment agencies involved with the brokers.

source: netizenbuzz

netizens are saying it's EXO lol

Comments

[uguukawaii.livejournal.com]

Lol exo
Tbh I don't care THAT much bc even when it is fair the popular songs are often bad and good songs by nugus wouldn't get #1 fairly anyway, it's usually just the most popular ppl which might be unfair but it's what it is

[digitalqueen.livejournal.com]

but exo did better in physical albums so i really cant see how it could be them. anyway, this is why i never care for digital sales.

[charlotterhys.livejournal.com]

Did Wolf make a big jump like that? I don't really follow digital rankings.

Wasn't Sistar accused of this last year?

[footballfina.livejournal.com]

no, it didn't

pressed netizens are still pressed about exo's wins

wolf was basically a non factor digitally; xoxo is what slayed

[candycrush808.livejournal.com]

I'm waiting to find out exactly who it is before I freak out. If it's a group I stan for...I'll be really disappointed. Ugh.

[charlotterhys.livejournal.com]

If it makes you feel better the actual people in the group had roughly nothing to do with it? Being disappointed in a company is different from being disappointed in the actual group members.

[rosetta16.livejournal.com]

EXO songs flop digitally and if SM had to do stuff like this they wouldnt have so big earnings at the end of the year

[strawberry-efeu.livejournal.com]

EXO did well because of their physical sales so that's stupid. Plus if you've followed SM groups for any amount of time you'd know that SM doesn't help their groups along like this. They either sink or swim on their own merits. Just think of the SM groups who have flopped.

It's interesting that they're investigating it though.

[wolfgirl.livejournal.com]

heh true true! do you mind letting me know which popular SM groups have significantly flopped (digitally)? I didn't bother about SM nor their groups much -except dbsk & exo- to notice :p

[hearttaek.livejournal.com]

Since SM is a publicly traded company, i doubt they'd be stupid enough to do something as shady.It's also not a good business move since it's just a huge expense of money with what returns? they already know they have a strong fanbase, that's going to bring in tons of money anyway. So why spend needlessly?

Sistar has always been accused of rigging the charts. I believe they really did it at first but i dont blame them. And im glad it paid off since it did get the public to notice them. They would have never stood a chance otherwise. Cant blame other rookies as well.

This happens everywhere. Not just in kpop. Youtube and vevo counts are manipulated as well. I would not really call it cheating. But it definitely prevents events from happening organically. Miley once mentioned something about a fan tipping her and her PR team how to go about generating buzz for her latest mv. Which included the timing, and the views and what to do to "break records"

[anconeous.livejournal.com]

EXO won because of their physical sales and their digital performance was nothing remarkable enough to be suspicious of. LOL

[hopeandmemory.livejournal.com]

nah, physical sales don't count for anything except i think 10% of music bank's chart? the physical sales are more important for the year-end music awards, like GDA, etc.

[luinmyheart.livejournal.com]

weren't they complaining about exo's low digital scores when exo swept the music shows? now they're accusing of SM manipulating the digital chart? gmafb.

SM wouldn't and doesn't need to waste their money on stuff like this.

[wolfgirl.livejournal.com]

assuming most of the comments are from knetz, sometimes I really wonder if the majority of them are dumb blondes. why do their opinions always make the rest of the world /facepalm?

exo bbs must be so sad rn in their lack of faith :(

[hopeandmemory.livejournal.com]

the only reason exo won the three major broadcast shows that week was because they got lucky, tbh. that was a REALLY good time to schedule their comeback, because there were no big groups coming back at the same time, and their fanbase is small but extremely devoted. for every music show they won, they were basically in last place for digital points, but the SNS points and fan voting put them over the top because the fans are c r a z y. they were up there for a week or so because the fandom was trying REALLY HARD to improve their digital points, but i don't think they really fit the criteria for this particular blind item... sm boy bands are notoriously shit on the digital charts, and they never bothered to do any of this with shinee so??? idk, netizens are just mad about something.

[chikage-chan.livejournal.com]

Preach.

[bmo.livejournal.com]

girls day and sistar TBH.

exo won bc they hav crazy ass fans, sns points do wonders.

[cairistiona.livejournal.com]

SiStar maybe, because of the confirmed buybacks, but not Girl's Day, they would have started long ago if they were going to. It's more Tony's sponsorship and how Expectation was played a lot in the streets/shops in Korea (plus it was reasonably high on the Gaon digital charts until June) that gave them a boost to win with Female President. Plus Female President is only 44 on the digital charts so they don't fit.

[vvvanilla.livejournal.com]

I doubt that it's EXO. Didn't they win because of the physical sales?

I'm curious though which of the popular artists still do this.

[srybutno.livejournal.com]

but its obviously not exo lmao like??????? ??

[daftpunkremix.livejournal.com]

exo flopped in terms of digital streams and downloads though. most of their wins came from fan votes and album sales. hmmmmmm who else suspiciously won this year

[plantbottle.livejournal.com]

lolno EXO flopped digitally. Their album sales/SNS points whatever got them their wins (I'm not even pressed, xoxo was awesome).

[takaki.livejournal.com]

Lol everyone is denying it's EXO but I've actually been checking the real time charts and EXO did manage to crack the top 10 on Melon in the first few days. They also managed to get top 10 on Gaon the week it was released. So Wolf did pretty well digitally for the first week given that it's an awful song that almost everybody hates and from SM since all their boys flop digitally. I was wondering how they even managed that bc the song is so shitty so I assumed that fans were stealing their friends and families' phones and computers to buy the song and stream but this makes sense too.

People also do realize that physical albums count for very little for the music shows if at all right (like at most 10%)? Even their massive sales wouldn't be able to offset everything else. And their digital points weren't totally abysmal the week they won too.

[erbalurbal.livejournal.com]

fan votes + broadcast points make up for the rest

[iznanassi.livejournal.com]

Why would it be EXO when they won with physical album sales?

Tbh it's really not a big deal, it's a form of marketing and it doesn't really harm the consumer.

[chikage-chan.livejournal.com]

I don't think it's EXO this time because their digital sales were totally ridiculous, which is believable considering SME's boy bands' history of bad digital sales. They won because of timing + crazy fangirls

But it makes me pretty sad that SME manage to fuck up their image with the general public so fast, to the point that they always come up in every bad article. I hope they can pull a SNSD and get over this soon, the boys dont deserve all the hate.

[xiao_tian_jelly.livejournal.com]

bad publicity is still publicity, and with a shitty song like Wolf, they need every publicity they can, at any cost. look at SNSD now, apples of every Korean's eye.

[hellodee16.livejournal.com]

hmm, Cube? Brave Brothers?...

[hipployta.livejournal.com]

Not EXO but I am considering some other groups lol

EXO won based on good timing, SNS, a short digital push for Wolf, and physical sales. They had the perfect week where their competition wasn't doing promotions or had just started.

They did well digitally for one day and then only Wolf hung on for a few days after. I want to know how they are doing digitally in China. I bought a digital copy on Soribada and iTunes the moment it released to get them the digital buzz too.

[erbalurbal.livejournal.com]

SM, the company that recycles everything and makes low budget videos.

[angela-derp-otp.livejournal.com]

MTE.

[ababobaby.livejournal.com]

nope. definitely not exo

[ababobaby.livejournal.com]

and i'm glad they actually won, even for just a week. it did wonders to their performance!

[angela-derp-otp.livejournal.com]

SME doesn't curr about digital sales, because they make their moneys from the dedicated fanbases.

They have been making low budget MVs for the last 4 years, spending half a million to boost digital sales is not their priority lol.

[chibi-rei.livejournal.com]

I think part of the reason EXO had really good physical sales -- and this is just my opinion/thought -- is fan signs. It's like this, in general big groups do lotteries. That is, you buy an album, your name goes in, and if you're lucky you are picked. But there are hardcore fans that will buy several albums for more chances to get in. I know a girl that bought *25* albums for one fan sign and actually didn't get in. And they had quite a few fan signs in the last month or so, so fans like that can really boost numbers.

Not saying that's the only factor, but with fans like that it can definitely be a big one.

[xiao_tian_jelly.livejournal.com]

25 is too little. someone posted her album cards and it's around 100++. she got on a EXO12 closed-door fansign so well, lucky her =D

[song-jihyuk.livejournal.com]

is it pominit?

[chibi-rei.livejournal.com]

Meh I doubt it. I know a lot of people on Omona didn't like it, but it was pretty popular here. I heard it a lot when I was out on the street and even Korean friends who aren't big pop fans were referencing it a bit.