"K-pop needs strong home market, new digital platform"

[ashiva.livejournal.com]

S.M. Entertainment chief suggests using advertising to enable free downloads

Lee Soo-man, chairman of S.M. Entertainment, said Wednesday although K-pop is increasingly popular around the world, it needs a strong boost in the local market first, to further advance to the next level.

The local music market needs a new digital music distribution platform ― an iTunes-like one or an entirely different one ― not only to allow purchasing digital music and globally sharing music for free but to give profits to songwriters from corporate marketing and advertisement, he said.


Lee Soo-man (left), chairman of S.M. Entertainment, talks with Culture Minister Choung Byoung-gug on K-pop in Choung’s office in Seoul on Wednesday, after receiving a plaque of thanks from the ministry for promoting the Korean Wave through K-pop.

His comments came during a conversation with Culture Minister Choung Byoung-gug, after receiving a plaque of appreciation from the Culture Ministry for accelerating the Korean Wave through K-pop promotions for the past 10 years.

S.M. Entertainment, founded by Lee, is the nation’s largest entertainment agency to which K-pop idol groups like Super Junior and Girls’ Generation belong. Its concert “S.M. Town Live in Paris” in June boosted European youth’s craze for K-pop.

“We’re promoting idol groups through social networking sites such as YouTube and Facebook. It was important to hold concerts overseas, like the recent one in Paris. But now is the time to enhance the local market,” Lee said to Choung at the minister’s office in Seoul.

“The reason our singers like BoA and H.O.T. were successful in overseas markets was that we had accumulated capital in the local market before they went overseas,” he said.

Lee was responding to Choung’s comment that the Korean government plans to set up a space in the Korean Cultural Center in Paris to encourage European fans to enjoy K-pop. Earlier on Friday, Lee said he would donate 1 million won ($950) to the cultural center in appreciation for the center’s cooperation in holding S.M.’s Paris concert.

To boost the local market and curb illegal downloads of music, Korea can make a new digital music platform which allows songwriters or producers to offer their new songs for free, on the condition that a corporate ad can be inserted, Lee said.

“Utilizing advertisement and marketing, we can induce 100 million clicks, for example, on Girls’ Generation’s new song by offering it for free for two or three months after a release,” Lee said.

“A high number of clicks will lead to a global exchange of K-pop, which will also lead to a virtuous circle of capital. Culture can lead the economy.”

Choung noted that when he visited Paris and met with French fans of K-pop in June, he found that most of them had originally been interested in learning the Korean language.

“While they were trying to learn Korean language easily with K-pop, they fell in love with the music. Their friends, who heard K-pop was good, were starting to take Korean language lessons to know K-pop better,” Choung said.

In response, Lee suggested Korea make an international hallyu school in Korea to invite and teach foreigners about Korean pop culture.

“What we have to be really careful about is that if the government organizations recklessly support poor quality hallyu concerts riding on the Korean Wave, it might give overseas fans a wrong first impression that there was nothing special about K-pop. Then, it will be very difficult to change their impression,” Lee said.

Lee also hinted that S.M. Entertainment and one of Korea’s leading conglomerates may team up for a new project.

“I think our company, as a leader (in the entertainment industry), should devise a new plan with a leader in business,” he said.

Source: Kim Yoon-mi @ The Korea Herald

Comments

[gardenintheair.livejournal.com]

you go Sooman coco!

[miliy96.livejournal.com]

“The reason our singers like BoA and H.O.T. were successful in overseas markets was that we had accumulated capital in the local market before they went overseas,”
THIS IS WHAT EVERYONE SHOULD THINK ABOUT BEFORE ADVANCING INTO JAPAN

[honeyfunnybunny.livejournal.com]

mte

[lysblack.livejournal.com]

srsly, it's always i always say when nugus are debuting in japan, why do it before having a good base back home?

[ababobaby.livejournal.com]

this

[eccentricvibe.livejournal.com]

basically

[montauks.livejournal.com]

Culture can lead the economy

w0rd

[devilstay.livejournal.com]

This, sfm.

[jela-ow.livejournal.com]

man, no matter how much hate LSM gets, he really knows what he's doing

[drfaith101.livejournal.com]

Can't fault his understanding of the business

[honeyfunnybunny.livejournal.com]

his understanding of business and the way he presents his ideas are flawless tbqh.
a little torn about him, but i'd give an arm just to attend some of his lectures.

[kms012.livejournal.com]

+1

[lysblack.livejournal.com]

i'm so childish, seeing him only talk about boa and h.o.t's overseas advancement made me lol.

but i can't hate the man for making sense and knowing how to get shit done. but he still have to improve his way of using youtube for his artists international fanbases (i think that in that part jype does better).

[rinn1e.livejournal.com]

LOL. I find it hilarious that only now he acknowledge H.O.T.

[seoulkhun.livejournal.com]

yeah, YG and JYP utilize youtube so much better than SM imo (and I think YG even has the edge over JYP when it comes to it actually)

[lysblack.livejournal.com]

not really, about yg's edge over i mean, yg and jyp do it right but in different ways, jyp provides subtitles for all their videos and have the the real series, plus a few random bits, while yg has the yg on air and such.

[geekpants.livejournal.com]

I'd give it about 5 more years before he mentions DBSK's success lol.

[rinn1e.livejournal.com]

“Utilizing advertisement and marketing, we can induce 100 million clicks, for example, on Girls’ Generation’s new song by offering it for free for two or three months after a release,” Lee said.

2 to 3 months is overkill don't you think? I mean, most groups now only promote in that timespan, after their promotion, it die down. If you're gonna give it out for free, a 3 days, first come first serve would help more, that would generate more clicks than the 2-3 months because it has more hype and momentum. 2-3 months wouldn't work because during the time of promotion, the first batch of people will download it, then upload it to another host, for more illegal / legal downloads. The second batch of people will just go download it somewhere else if they don't want to deal with the ads.


Will the money earn from advertisements goes to Idol groups from your company as well? Or they'll go to the Board and your pockets? Because I don't see how Idol Groups can earn with this. Free is good, but with causes. This idea sounds ideal, but it's not going to work. Especially in the long run.



Also, I have adblocks. People will create codes to block ads as always, and other than fans, most people will use those codes if it's convenient.

[rinn1e.livejournal.com]

I see he wants Kpop to be acknowledge by worldwide, but in the end, the one who suffer will be the Idols themselves because while the music is out for free. Advertisements generate money, but I doubt execs would share it with the idol groups.

[embroideredkiss.livejournal.com]

True, but how much money do they get from their actual music anyway? I was under the impression that the record company gets the vast majority of album sales and the idols make their money mainly from variety appearances, so free downloads might not make that much difference to them.

[rinn1e.livejournal.com]

I think it would be worst. Because I think Idols now earn through digital downloads, the more downloads, the easier for them to earn, more so than album sales, and even if it's little, adding it up with the earn from album sales. If you take that away, then all you have left is money through album sales. Agency has to split money through digital downloads in so many ways. I see this Corporate ads is a mean to take all the shares because it's advertisements. And I don't think there are law on sharing profits from ads yet? The person who will get the profits from ads would be the Providers. Not the agency nor idols. Because it's their system and basically their ads.


So many flaws. I'm pretty sure Apple thought of it before. Apple, Microsoft, Google, they all love ads, then we have the RIAA that loves money and are complaining about losses in the industry. If it work, I'm sure these people would use it long before LSM.

And I forgot about this, but would this platform be available worldwide or just in SK or Asia?

[embroideredkiss.livejournal.com]

Hmmm, I see what you mean...potentially, the trade of is that because because of the extra promotion from the free downloads they get they might increase their fanbase and so sell more albums, or their increased popularity would lead to more variety appearances, CFs, concerts, endorsements, etc etc so could make up for the loss of the digital sales in the long run.

And I think all advertisement revenue would definitely go all the company and the download website, zero to the artists, so the record company is making up for their loss from digital sales right there. I assume it would be a worldwide platform, since SM seems to be very interested in the international market these days.

[nandexdame.livejournal.com]

songs on Korean download sites are already given away practically for free. the money the company and the idols would miss out on is not that much and what little they get could be financed by the ads.

not as many people are aware of adblock as one would think. you can go over to ontd where I would've guessed the users are more tech savvy than most and see how many people complain about ads on ontd

[beatification.livejournal.com]

I have to say I'm relieved to hear this from you, sooman.

[embroideredkiss.livejournal.com]

Say what you want about SM (and there are plenty of bad things to say) but they know how to make money!

[ababobaby.livejournal.com]

he's an evil genius that's for sure. i really look up to him especially when he himself starred in the 'thank you' video for the Europe fans :) and also when he's interacting with the sm bb's

[eccentricvibe.livejournal.com]

Hmm I agree with him.

[yeongwonnie.livejournal.com]

damn it! this man gives me such mixed emotions
I really wanna hate him but I have to admit, he's a genius when it comes to business, he understands & knows what he's doing very well which is worth being admired tbh

[devilstay.livejournal.com]

Say what you will about the man, but when it comes down to it, he knows what's he's doing, he's a business genius. I mean, a couple of years ago, what the hell was kpop? Now days, I (myself anyway), don't have to look far to find at least one person, to either get annoyed at the very mentioned of the letter 'k', or squeal in fangirl happiness.

[amandaplan.livejournal.com]

Smart. I'd like to see what happens with this.

[orenji13.livejournal.com]

idk, he had some capital from local market as a modal for the artists overseas activity but then, he didn't do anything to maintain that local market.

He practically send BoA and DBSK to Japan and abandon their Korea career.
He got lucky with DBSK, because in some way, their Korean fans keep on supporting the boys and they get place when they make their comeback. But even this, the boys still feel nervous with their Mirotic comeback.

I can't say the same with BoA. Because she leave Korea for Japan, leave Japan for USA, and lost all three market.

He is a genius in producing artist, but his overseas adventure has been lackluster (except for Japan).

[thewarpedmelody.livejournal.com]

Finally someone realises this problem. Their domestic sales have been flopping like nuts.

[thewarpedmelody.livejournal.com]

Since after TVXQ's mirotic, idols have been struggling to even hit 200,000.

People keep bragging about TVXQ having the largest official fanclub in the World of 800,000. But then their sales doesn't even match the numbers.

[thewarpedmelody.livejournal.com]

Yea, only a few actually manage to sell above 200,000, despite the "mighty Hallyu wave" and how popular they claim Kpop is. Comparing this to Japan, big artiste at their peak can easily cross 750,000

[maximumtimo.livejournal.com]

I always imagined Lee Sooman to look like a fat creep. This is the first time I saw a picture of him!! :O

[yeongwonnie.livejournal.com]

lool! he's a foxy little devil

I've never thought I'd say something like this about him but he's kinda...cute? o_O


lol @Heechul

[ghost-whisper.livejournal.com]

He knows his stuff.

I wish business people would look at the major flaw in expecting websites to be a good source of ad revenue via clicking though. I mean, how many times do you actually click any ads that you see on websites, assuming you don't just adblock them? Virus possibilities aside, who's to say it's legit? It always bugs me when sites add ads to generate revenue...don't most people ignore them anyways? Until/unless host sites are able to guarantee the legitimacy and safety of ads posted on their sites, the vaaaaast majority of traffic will ignore them as always. And just grab the free music.

Lee said he would donate 1 million won ($950) to the cultural center
Dude, it's the largest entertainment agency in the country, and you're donating a thousand bucks? (not even). Tightwad.

[kms012.livejournal.com]

"Lee said he would donate 1 million won ($950) to the cultural center
Dude, it's the largest entertainment agency in the country, and you're donating a thousand bucks? (not even). Tightwad."

LMAO, when I first saw the amount I was wondering if it was typo or not...

[grapewhine.livejournal.com]

Could we have tags for LSM, YG and JYP at least? It'd make it easier to look these things up, they're pretty interesting.

[weerainbow.livejournal.com]

He sure seems to know his business strategies well and there's no doubt he is very much a forward-thinker which is essential in any business.