Fandom and Business

K-Pop

Course 1 · Chapter 7 · Fandom and Business

K-pop is also a business. This chapter looks at how large the industry is claimed to be, who dominates it, how its charts work and how they can be gamed, and what the sources say about the fans whose spending and attention keep it going. As in earlier chapters, every number has an owner.

How this chapter was checked, and what is missing The facts here come from the Industry sections of Wikipedia's K-pop article (Agencies, Sales and market value, Record charts, Television), its Korean idol article (relationship with fans) and its Circle Chart article, as I read them. I found little in these articles on fan chants, fan-club structure, lightsticks or albums as merchandise, and a search for dedicated articles returned nothing useful. I therefore say only what the articles say about fans and do not describe the rest from memory. I read no financial filings, chart databases or fan-community sources.

How Big, and Said By Whom

The K-pop article gives several figures for the size of the industry. They come from different years and different sources, and they measure different things, so they should not be added or compared directly.

YearClaim as the article gives it
2012According to Billboard, the Korean music industry grossed nearly US$3.4 billion in the first half of 2012, up 27.8% on the previous year. Time magazine called it "South Korea's Greatest Export". The average cost of obtaining a K-pop song in South Korea was US$0.10 for a download, or US$0.002 streamed.
2017"It was estimated that the K-pop music industry had a revenue of US$5 billion."
2019IFPI listed South Korea as the sixth-largest music market in the world. The article adds that BTS "alone" accounted for "$4.65 billion, or 0.3%, of South Korea's GDP".
2024IFPI "declared K-pop the leading global genre in unit sales, across both physical and digital formats", and the article says seventeen of the top twenty albums on its Global Album Sales Chart belonged to the genre.
Read these numbers carefully The 2012 figure is for the Korean music industry in half a year, the 2017 figure is an estimate for the K-pop industry, and the 2019 figure for BTS is a share of the national economy. These are three different definitions, from three different owners, and the article gives no method for any of them. The BTS figure in particular is a claim about one group's effect on the economy that I could not check against its original source. The lead of the article (Chapter 1) has a sentence about a 2020 market growth figure with a missing verb, so I give no 2020 figure.

Who Dominates

The article's Agencies section says the three biggest companies "in terms of sales and revenue" are SM, YG and JYP, "often referred to as the 'Big Three'", and that with the growth of Hybe it has also come to be called the "Big Four". It adds that "currently, the agency with the greatest market share is S.M. Entertainment." In 2011, the Big Three founded, with Star J Entertainment, AM Entertainment and Key East, the joint management company United Asia Management.

Three or four? Chapter 4 noted that one article calls YG "one of the three biggest" and another names four. This section explains the gap: "Big Three" is the older label and "Big Four" the newer. The article gives no sales table behind either label, so the labels show common usage, not a measured ranking. The market-share claim for SM is likewise unsourced in what I read.

The same section describes how agencies make their money, as the article puts it: they "recruit, finance, train and market new artists, and manage their musical activities and public relations", and the industry around them includes "music production houses, event management companies, music distributors, and other merchandise and service providers". Chapter 4's point that agencies pay for training for years before earning anything belongs here too. The article's own phrase is that the "significant financial investment" in trainees makes agencies launch artists "with deliberate care".

The Charts

The charts decide what counts as a "hit", so how they work matters.

ChartWhat the articles say
Gaon Chart, now Circle ChartLaunched in February 2010 by the Korea Music Content Association, sponsored by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, "to create a domestic national chart similar to the Billboard charts of the United States and the Oricon charts of Japan". The name gaon means "middle" or "center" and was chosen "to represent fairness and reliability". Rebranded as Circle Chart on 7 July 2022, with a new Global K-pop Chart added.
Circle Digital ChartThe K-pop article says it compiles data from platforms including Apple Music, Spotify, MelOn, Bugs, Vibe, Genie, Flo and Samsung Music, with hourly and daily charts compiled by the company iChart.
Circle Social ChartA weekly chart of the top 50 K-pop artists using data from YouTube, Mubeat, Higher and Keytalk AI.
CertificationSince April 2018 the Korea Music Content Association has awarded certifications for albums, downloads and streams. Album certifications are based on shipment figures provided by labels and distributors, and apply to releases from 1 January 2018.
Billboard K-pop Hot 100Listed with the Circle Digital Chart as a Korean record chart. The article says K-pop records have also appeared on Japan's Oricon Albums Chart and the Billboard Hot 100 in the United States.

The K-pop article describes three achievements on the iChart system:

  • All-Kill. A song "simultaneously places first on all of South Korea's major music platforms real-time charts".
  • Certified All-Kill. The same, on real-time and daily charts.
  • Perfect All-Kill. The highest: first place on real-time, daily and weekly charts.
Gaon, Circle and what changed Older sources and many articles say "Gaon". After 7 July 2022 the same chart is the Circle Chart, and the K-pop article uses "Circle". The articles describe the change as a rebranding, so a claim about a "Gaon number one" before 2022 and a "Circle number one" after it refers to the same chart, though the platforms feeding it may have changed. Check the date.

Gaming the Charts

The K-pop article says sajaegi (사재기) is "the Korean term for chart manipulation by way of bulk purchasing of albums or using bots to boost streams, which has potential to question [the] credibility of charts." It gives no cases, so I name none. It follows from the article's own description that a number-one position is evidence of what a chart counted, not a measure of how many people listened. The article's earlier report about television producers who were arrested in 2002 for accepting payments for TV appearances (Chapter 4) is a separate matter, but it shows that charts and airtime have been tied to money before.

The Fans

The Korean idol article describes the relationship between idols and fans as "parasocial kin": fans "create a familial connection with their idols rather than just being 'look-from-afar' fans". It lists the ways fans and idols meet: fan meetings (called artist engagements), concerts, fan sites, artist cafés, and the annual convention KCON. It says fans often take part in the production of idol groups, and that some trainees already have their own fans before debut, so the "kinship starts early".

  • Company approval. The article says some fan projects "must also be approved by the venue or the idols' company", to "minimize any harm to the idols and fan participants", and that fan connections with idols "would most likely still have to go through their company to be approved".
  • Fans as watchdogs. The article says that when something happens, fans "have their own unique ways" of showing their views on "unfair" actions by management companies, and "often appear to be protecting idols from company mistreatment". Chapter 3 gave an example: "hundreds of fans" protested against SM after H.O.T. broke up.
  • Language. The article says fans have shown commitment by learning Korean, "often with the help of romanization", to understand song lyrics.
  • The business reason. The Korean idol article says that as domestic fandom "is not generally enough to produce the profits that these corporations ... require", branding and marketing of the artist or group "has become central to industry profits".
What I could not check The outline listed fan-chants, voting, albums as merchandise and lightsticks. The articles I read do not describe any of them in detail, so I have not written about them. The survival shows in Chapter 5 involve audience votes, but I read nothing on how the voting works. If you have a source you trust on fan voting and album sales, I can add a section.

Reading Claims About Money and Fame

  1. Check the definition. "Industry", "market" and "economic effect" are different quantities.
  2. Check the owner and year. A Billboard figure for 2012 and an IFPI claim for 2024 do not combine.
  3. Check what a chart counts. Platforms, sales and streams are counted differently, and the article itself says charts can be manipulated.
  4. Check the unit. "Units sold" does not say who bought them or why.

Exercises

Exercise 1

Pick two figures from the size table and explain why they cannot be directly compared. Then say what the article means by the "Big Three" and the "Big Four", and why neither label is a measured ranking.

→ Solution
Exercise 2

Explain the three kinds of "All-Kill", and what the Gaon Chart became in 2022. Then describe sajaegi and explain what it means for how you read a "number one".

→ Solution
Exercise 3

Describe what the Korean idol article means by "parasocial kin", give two ways fans and idols meet, and give one way companies limit fan activity. Then list two fandom topics this chapter does not cover and say why.

→ Solution

Quick Reference

  • Size claims: 2012 US$3.4bn first half (Billboard); 2017 US$5bn (estimate); 2019 sixth-largest market (IFPI); 2024 leading global genre in unit sales (IFPI)
  • Big Three / Big Four: SM, YG, JYP / plus Hybe; labels of common usage
  • Gaon Chart: launched February 2010 by the Korea Music Content Association; renamed Circle Chart 7 July 2022
  • All-Kill: first on real-time charts; Certified adds daily; Perfect adds weekly
  • Sajaegi (사재기): chart manipulation by bulk buying or bots
  • Fans: "parasocial kin"; fan meetings, concerts, fan sites, artist cafés, KCON; company approval often needed
  • Check: the BTS economic figure, SM's market share and all fan-voting details

Next chapter: The Wave Goes Abroad, which follows Hallyu in Asia, then YouTube and Gangnam Style, BTS and Blackpink, and the language question.