News 208 SM Employees Release Collective Statement About Their Stance On The Company's Current Situation (1 Viewer)

[RandAlThor]

While this sounds very dramatic, this is less than half of the employees at SM and I notice that no artist has spoken up here so this could clearly go either way and most are just sitting tight to see where it goes, not even the artists like Kangta and Boa who have some power and shares.




Hmm. I disagree that it’s just about jealousy of Hybe. A big part of the concern within SM isn’t just about being the biggest, but specific tenets of the style. SM artists and many of the creatives working with them have always prided themselves on one of the company’s key points of difference: the emphasis on vocal training and ability, which is not something Hybe is focused on or interested in. If you look at a lot of the Blind comments from employees, this is more of the concern - sure they would like to be #1, but they also felt proud of the work they did and worry.

Its not about being the biggest but rather being stripped of that core point of difference - the same way people flex about being “for the arts, not the charts.” It’s also what you see the fanbases being most worried about aside from disbandment.




Naw, that’s the complaint of people who don’t stan SM groups. Most stans of SM groups don’t care about that - all agencies are just about the money. What we all complain about is the piss poor management. For a company that’s quick to sell birthday necklaces and other useless merch, they continually understock albums for popular groups (thus making less money), struggle to manage multiple releases for their top selling with long delays (again making less money), don’t schedule or poorly manage tours (again making less money), stop giving af about their top groups and promoting them because they think they’re strong enough they don’t even need to bother (EXO, RV, NCT 127 at different points in time, making yes, less money) and don’t capitalize on CF or promotional opportunities that could - you guessed it, make more money - because of their arcane rules around timing. SVT, SKZ and Twice out there releasing multiple albums in a year while most SM groups are lucky to release one a year. Brand new idols have tons of CFs while idols that constantly trend on Naver for just farting are just now getting deals seven years into their career.

Ice Spice and Pink Pantheress are out there talking about NCT 127 and about to debut in the top 3 of the BB charts and not a person at the label made a noise at them until the fandom kept shouting at them about it and I would bet $$ they’ll do fuckall about it, like make a collabo track. 🤬

For a company that is trying to make money, they don’t try very hard in the ways they could be doing it. I don’t want an $80 sweatshirt that looks like something I could get on Redbubble. (Actually that’s insulting to redbubble.) I want you to give me more than 4 days notice that there will be a concert and tickets are going on sale. I want you to not be delayed on one of your breadwinner’s comebacks when they only have ONE a year - and to make sure you have all the members in the picture since it’s a 7 year old group and you’ve had a minute to learn it. I guarantee you’d see a lot more than $80 if you did those things. If Jaehyun can make sunglasses sell out at Prada, what could you do with an organized tour or album launch?

Atp I don’t really care if it’s Hybe or Kakao, as long as they do their job. The only thing I think that will be missed, regardless of which wins, is the ability to experiment. NCT went several years before making a profit and tho the groups are now the breadwinners and the gamble paid off, I do not think in a future state they would allow the time it took to get there and that will be missed. We won’t see another fx or NCT or aespa because it will be focused on safety and maximum profit margins UNLESS new owner decides to keep the label as the “lab” where they experiment with new things.

All fair points.

For over a decade now being a fan i fail to see how many of these companies can be so awful at the primary job.

That albums, comebacks ect are consistently delayed in a ripple fashion at times. ie SJ isnt ready so exo RV ect must wait.
That comebacks of major groups are stepped on by in agency major acts ie red flavor got maybe 10 days before ko ko bop.
each fandom knows teh fups pertaining to them the best.

Heck i have been to the sm owned stores and they were out of the albums. Should never happen. or at least hyper rarely.

Concerts you brought up. us acts have tour schedules printed out months in advance. (granted part of that is the music cycle for albums in the us is much longer.) Concerts are the life blood of groups and crazy money makers yet i really do nt see them maximizing this at all. Except maybe tvxq and shinee in japan.

EXO fans have never been happy as they felt SM did not even try to expand to the us/west and left it for bts. They felt a more vocal group could have found a strong following. Pretty much no fandom is happy with the way teh groups are promoted in say +7 to +10 time zones. call it g to k

Pr the number of companies that have useless pr departments is just crazy. Thus 'scandals ' of no value blow up and end acts.

SM consistently has crazy good album design to the point they win awards)and they just do not market it well.
For example Keys repack killer is like an old school video game package. really creative .

I do agree that they are people who pride them selves at sm on sm leading trends and trying things others will not.

But i disagree on the envy whenever they bring up market cap they are complaining that for the footprint SM has in SK entertainment the market cap number is really really low. Where as hybe for example has cash to burn, evidenced by the companies they have bought and the offer for sm stocks.

Even if say the biggest numbers bandied about lsm are true 200m in 10 years or so. its a drop in the bucket. nowhere near the numbers needed to put them well above say jyp and yg. ( well yg is a shadow of its self atm)

 

[RandAlThor]

Its really difficult for me to judge those things, but weren't there rumors they had plans to appoint HYBE people to the board of directors like Bang PD himself and Min Hee Jin? Those are at least not money people

Also btw just got recommended this vid by YT earlier, I feel like you would like her takes (ignore the click bait title and thumb nail)

person seems to have a thing about lsm from some of her other vids.
illlhve to check it out later the windows update fubared me and ate up my time last night.

 

[Selfmate]

interesting