News Court grants injunction; Kakao shares now blocked for SM (1 Viewer)

[litc]

Sometimes I wish Thor would hit you with his hammer!

cheeky done right

 

[StirFriedPanda]

cheeky done right

My protege learns fast. Soon she'll be a comedic expert like me.

 

[the101]

Sometimes I wish Thor would hit you with his hammer!

Red Velvet is profitable. People like Hyo and Boa are not. I think the 1st and 2nd gens are at biggest risk here except Taeyeon, as well as the idea that every member of a group gets a mini. But I'd suspect those people locked in these solos in their renewal contract. I also think if your solo mini doesn't sell well, you won't get a second chance. And I think if you're not a popular member, all bets are off.

Like in NCT, we already know which members will get solos, but some of those in-between members have to worry now (will get solos: Jaehyun, Mark, Taeyong, Doyoung, Haechan, Jungwoo, Ten. All of those members are locks - they are pretty consistently among the most popular members either in Korea, internationally or both. Jaehyun, Mark, Taeyong and Ten also have some of the largest, most organized fanbases so power to trend and boost. Jaemin and Winwin have the same problem - they are among the most popular members, but a solo will be tough for either of them (just in terms of vocal and rap skills IMO). Winwin's turned to acting so I don't think he's even looking for a solo tbh.

Taeil is less popular but the success of his OST and the fact he's one of the best voices of his generation will carry him to a mini (or at least a single.) Chinese members will be hosed - they seem to be pushing Xiaojun, so maybe him? Everyone else, nope. (Maybe Yuta - he's popular in Japan and SM has never capitalized on him musically..maybe Hybe will have a different approach. SM has had a hard push on Jeno, but if you look at popularity or album sales, he's definitely behind Mark, Haechan and Jaemin in popularity).

Now of course if Hybe actually considered this, nearly all of them could be quite profitable applied in the right place (ie variety, singles, etc). Several of them could be successful actors but I just don't know what the plan will be here.

I'm just spitballing here based on logic. Tbh, I'm most worried for WayV - they have a lot of possibilities and potential but SM has never really invested in them or is familiar with the Chinese market and neither is Hybe. I don't think Hybe will give them the time to grow the other units had. There's also a bigger cliff of popularity in that group than the other units.

 

[Abeamus]

The boy groups sell and tour too well still.
Boa is at risk.
Maybe they will have Kangta produce.
Oh! GG maybe

Aespa and RV are million sellers now. hard to see them letting them go.
now all the solo's may be done and the huge focus on side work for members.

It's crazy to say this but I don't think 1 million sales saves anyone from being messed with when it comes to Hybe and that's because while looking up Gfriend stuff on Twitter I do see examples pop up of Hybe messing with Seventeen in ways like moving their variety show because it was clashed with TXTs timeslot as well as not using their fandom colours and they have an album that sold 3 million.

Another thing to consider when it comes to who Hybe could potentially keep from SM and that is if you go through Hybes sub-labels that you'll notice none of them have more than 2 groups to a label (Big Hit - BTS & TXT, BeLift - Enhypen, Source - Le Sserafim, Ador - NewJeans & Pledis - Seventeen & Fromis) so I think there's a good chance of Hybe just keeping probably some form of NCT as I doubt they will keep all of it and aespa from SM as they won't have to worry about trademarks since I'm sure SM has all of the trademarks which they'll get from the acquisition.

 

[the101]

I actually went to look at last year's sales just to get a snapshot view. I couldn't find all the year -end sales, so went with 1st week. I also looked at 2021 to add in some of those top shooters like EXO, Baek and Kai.

short version:
Million sellers (2021/2022):
NCT Dream
NCT 127
aespa
EXO
Baekhyun

In top 100 selling albums (top 10 soloists marked with *)
Red Velvet
DO*
SNSD
Seulgi*
Suho*
Kai*
U-Know
Super Junior
Xiumin*
Taeyeon*
WayV
Shinee
Wendy*
Taemin*
Joy

-------

Not in top 100 (so at risk):
Onew
Yesung
Key
Chen
Minho
Kyuhyun
Max changmin
Ryeowook
Hyoyeon
Boa
Kangta

I also think you might see a shift in what people get - Taemin and Key aren't high sellers but have gotten full albums.

Spoiler: Numbers and data

Soloists have lower numbers so I've flagged the top selling soloists of the year for context on numbers that seem small compared to groups.
Red are 2021 artists (I was trying to take the largest cross-section of SM artists and some big players were not in action in 2022).

italics were in the top 100 albums for the year, bold finished as million sellers.
* are in top 10 soloists

NCT Dream - Candy (mini) - 1,591,021
NCT 127 - 2 Baddies (album) - 1,547,695
NCT Dream - Glitch Mode (album) - 1,405,194
EXO - DFTF (mini) - 902,210
Baekhyun* - Bambi (mini) - 868,832
NCT Dream - Beatbox (repack) - 848,367
Red Velvet - The Reve Festival 2022 - Birthday (mini)- 496,874
Red Velvet - The Reve Festival 2022 - Feel My Rhythm (mini)- 443,922
DO* - Empathy (mini) - 310,108
aespa - Girls (mini) - 276,877
Girls Generation - Forever 1 (album) - 185,687
Seulgi* - 28 Reasons (mini) - 184,413
Suho* - Grey Suit (mini) - 154,818
Kai* - Peaches (mini) - 154,310
U-Know - Noir (mini) - 153,691
SuperJunior - The Road: Celebration (mini) - 146,657
Xiumin* - Brand New (mini) - 146,444
Taeyeon* - INVU (album) - 142,019
WayV - Kick Back (mini) - 128,106
Shinee - Don't Call Me (album) - 127,208
SuperJunior - The Road: Keep Going (mini) - 120,222
Wendy*- Like Water - 116,696
SuperJunior - The Road: Winter for Spring (single album) - 101,195
---
Taemin*- Advice (mini) - 95,453 (year-end numbers would have been too low to be a top soloist in 2022, would barely make top 100 albums)
Joy* - Hello (mini) - 72,746


-------
Onew - Dice (mini) - 94,593
Yesung - Beautiful Night - 85,316
Key - Gasoline (album) - 77,028
Chen - The Last Scene (album) - 72,994
Minho - Chase - 48,451
Kyuhyun - Love Story (mini) - 29,664
Max Changmin - Devil (mini) - 13,938
Ryeowook - A wild Rose (mini) - 16,500
Hyoyeon - Deep (mini) - 8,246
Boa - Forgive Me (mini) - 11,154
Kangta - Eyes On You (album) - 5,576





NCT Universe and aespa were released the year before but sold strongly enough to still make the top 100 in 2022. NCT 2018 Empathy, 2020 Resonance and NCT Dream We Boom sold well enough to make the charts in 2021.

 

[Moguri]

I'm already pretty much over Mashidam leaving Treasure and Loona breaking up, bUT IF HYBE DISBANDS RED VELVET AND AESPA (oh, ESPECIALLY Aespa!)- well, let's just say they're fucking lucky some of the artists on my stanlist happen to be under their umbrella! (TXT, Seventeen, Le Sserafim, NewJeans...)

So you're saying, if they disband them, you will just go on with your life as nothing happend?

 

[Moguri]

It’s the sound of defeat. I’ve realized as mad as I get about the situation, it won’t change anything realistically. I really really don’t want any of the groups I stan to be affected of course, but it’s not like HYBE will come across ks and decide, this users a huge stan of SuperM. Let’s not screw the group over. So yeah, I’m just waiting to see how bad the situation will be

Maybe send Bang PD the link to KS, just to be sure you tried everything in your power

 

[Moguri]

I never said that once. I always saying you could have more fun though. See, you wished harm on me and it made us all happy. Violence can solve problems and bring world peace.

I was not aware I'm giving off a vibe that I'm not having fun

 

[Moguri]

cheeky done right

I always do it right

 

[Moguri]

My protege learns fast. Soon she'll be a comedic expert like me.

I was not aware you were csonidered a comedic expert here

 

[StrayMixx]

So you're saying, if they disband them, you will just go on with your life as nothing happend?

Okay, I take that back - I'll be a fucking trainwreck!!! Red Velvet was one of my first K-pop groups, and I'm NOT about to let HYBE take that away!!! And Aespa - OMG they debuted just last year, have some mercy!

 

[Moguri]

It's crazy to say this but I don't think 1 million sales saves anyone from being messed with when it comes to Hybe and that's because while looking up Gfriend stuff on Twitter I do see examples pop up of Hybe messing with Seventeen in ways like moving their variety show because it was clashed with TXTs timeslot as well as not using their fandom colours and they have an album that sold 3 million.

Another thing to consider when it comes to who Hybe could potentially keep from SM and that is if you go through Hybes sub-labels that you'll notice none of them have more than 2 groups to a label (Big Hit - BTS & TXT, BeLift - Enhypen, Source - Le Sserafim, Ador - NewJeans & Pledis - Seventeen & Fromis) so I think there's a good chance of Hybe just keeping probably some form of NCT as I doubt they will keep all of it and aespa from SM as they won't have to worry about trademarks since I'm sure SM has all of the trademarks which they'll get from the acquisition.

You are becoming somewhat of a doomsday prophet

I do not think it does make sense to compare SM to all those other sub-labels, who were either newly formed or a lot smaller than SM to begin with and now assume that 80% the groups will be disbanded.

But maybe I'm just to naive like always... I also thought if a company like Disney investes such a big amount of money into buying Star Wars, they would certainly not treat it careless.. but oh well, maybe Hybe is better than that

 

[Moguri]

Okay, I take that back - I'll be a fucking trainwreck!!! Red Velvet was one of my first K-pop groups, and I'm NOT about to let HYBE take that away!!! And Aespa - OMG they debuted just last year, have some mercy!

Aespa actually debuted in 2020

 

[StrayMixx]

Aespa actually debuted in 2020

STILL! That's still too young to for a permanent group!

 

[Moguri]

Seulgi* - 28 Reasons (mini) - 184,413

I don't know how reliable this site is, but I see it a lot on twitter.. so at least many people seem to use it

But they have Red Velvets 2022 year listed with 2,4 mio albums sold:

Red Velvet Sales Summary

Korean: 레드벨벳 Debut: Korea: August 1st, 2014 Japan: July 4th, 2018 Members: Irene, Seulgi, Wendy, Joy, Yeri Label: SM Entertainment Kore...

koreansalestwt.blogspot.com

Also the birthday album is listed with more than 1 mio sales (gaon), which would also make them million sellers

Other sources also reported on this

Red Velvet Officially Becomes Million Sellers With “The ReVe Festival 2022 – Birthday” | Soompi

Red Velvet has just reached a huge milestone in their music career! The group's mini album “The ReVe Festival 2022 – Birthday,” which was released last

www.soompi.com

Looking at Gfriend stats in comparion from the same site:

GFRIEND Sales Summary

Korean: 여자친구 Japanese: ママム Debut: Korea: June 19th, 2014 Japan: October 3rd, 2018 Members: Sowon, Yerin, Eunha, Yuju, SinB, and Umji La...

koreansalestwt.blogspot.com

Their total career sales are not even one million and the last album only sold 70k copies? I'm not sure what to believe here, people always say Gfriend was doing well, but if you look at the pure numbers, it was not so well

 

[Moguri]

STILL! That's still too young to for a permanent group!

I really can't imagine why Hybe should want to disband them

 

[Abeamus]

You are becoming somewhat of a doomsday prophet

I do not think it does make sense to compare SM to all those other sub-labels, who were either newly formed or a lot smaller than SM to begin with and now assume that 80% the groups will be disbanded.

But maybe I'm just to naive like always... I also thought if a company like Disney investes such a big amount of money into buying Star Wars, they would certainly not treat it careless.. but oh well, maybe Hybe is better than that

Hybe chose to make new labels instead of using Big Hit for it so that's a choice they made instead of having it all under Big Hit they instead just associate Big Hit with all the new groups by calling them collab groups (Big Hit x Source Music for Le Sserafim, Big Hit x CJ ENM for Enhypen & Big Hit x Ador for NewJeans).

That's not even getting into the fact that Pledis was planning a 10th anniversary comeback for Nu'est and a reason Gfriend might have not known when their contracts ended being that they were terminated 6 months early if the rumours about them ending in November are true and would add up with SinB saying she was fired.

You don't have to be a doomsday prophet to see what Hybe is doing as much as they tell you otherwise like I saw an article about an interview recently where Bang Sihyuk denied Hybe was becoming a monopoly and right Garam wasn't a bully either and they were going to sue anyone accusing her until they put her on hiatus from Le Sserafim and realised the group did just fine without her.

I'd happily give a company the benefit of the doubt if they seem to be a good company overall but I have seen very little to show Hybe as a good company and even then I don't talk about stuff where I can see the logic in it like Hybe dropped Source Musics boy group trainees due to TXT having debuted recently which while I'm not sure I agree with the decision as I think they could have co-existed but the logic is there that they could have clashed.

 

[Abeamus]

I don't know how reliable this site is, but I see it a lot on twitter.. so at least many people seem to use it

But they have Red Velvets 2022 year listed with 2,4 mio albums sold:

Red Velvet Sales Summary

Korean: 레드벨벳 Debut: Korea: August 1st, 2014 Japan: July 4th, 2018 Members: Irene, Seulgi, Wendy, Joy, Yeri Label: SM Entertainment Kore...

koreansalestwt.blogspot.com

Also the birthday album is listed with more than 1 mio sales (gaon), which would also make them million sellers

Other sources also reported on this

Red Velvet Officially Becomes Million Sellers With “The ReVe Festival 2022 – Birthday” | Soompi

Red Velvet has just reached a huge milestone in their music career! The group's mini album “The ReVe Festival 2022 – Birthday,” which was released last

www.soompi.com

Looking at Gfriend stats in comparion from the same site:

GFRIEND Sales Summary

Korean: 여자친구 Japanese: ママム Debut: Korea: June 19th, 2014 Japan: October 3rd, 2018 Members: Sowon, Yerin, Eunha, Yuju, SinB, and Umji La...

koreansalestwt.blogspot.com

Their total career sales are not even one million and the last album only sold 70k copies? I'm not sure what to believe here, people always say Gfriend was doing well, but if you look at the pure numbers, it was not so well

The thing you are leaving out here is that Gfriend have had a consistent area of sales from around 70-100k for years with the first time they sold over 60k being with their 4th comeback and their sales would just always fluctuate around the same range which during this time girl groups were not selling 1 million albums and the most was under 500k and even 100k for a girl group was a huge milestone.

Gfriend had shown clear signs before Hybe bought Source Music that their album sales were stagnant in an expanding market so you can't use Gfriends album sales against them because Hybe knew what album sales they had going into it and if they thought they were going to magically give Gfriend a 5 year old group at the time which until Oh My Girl broke out was unheard of a group that old seeing any kind of exponential growth then that was a foolish thought.

 

[Moguri]

Hybe chose to make new labels instead of using Big Hit for it so that's a choice they made instead of having it all under Big Hit they instead just associate Big Hit with all the new groups by calling them collab groups (Big Hit x Source Music for Le Sserafim, Big Hit x CJ ENM for Enhypen & Big Hit x Ador for NewJeans).

That's not even getting into the fact that Pledis was planning a 10th anniversary comeback for Nu'est and a reason Gfriend might have not known when their contracts ended being that they were terminated 6 months early if the rumours about them ending in November are true and would add up with SinB saying she was fired.

You don't have to be a doomsday prophet to see what Hybe is doing as much as they tell you otherwise like I saw an article about an interview recently where Bang Sihyuk denied Hybe was becoming a monopoly and right Garam wasn't a bully either and they were going to sue anyone accusing her until they put her on hiatus from Le Sserafim and realised the group did just fine without her.

I'd happily give a company the benefit of the doubt if they seem to be a good company overall but I have seen very little to show Hybe as a good company and even then I don't talk about stuff where I can see the logic in it like Hybe dropped Source Musics boy group trainees due to TXT having debuted recently which while I'm not sure I agree with the decision as I think they could have co-existed but the logic is there that they could have clashed.

I'm not sure what the point of your first paragrpah is tbh, so what difference does it make to us as fans if they use only big hit directly, or do the big hit x other label thing?

I'm not a fan of any Hybe or SM group as of now, so I do not feel emotionally invested in this, but to me all the examples you give are not very convincing why every SM group has to fear for its existence now. Yes, corporate people lie a lot and after one company buys the other, some not so nice things happen in the company that got bought. This always happens, regardless if its Kpop or any other field.

It will happen in SM too, so fans have good reason to be worried, but certainly not to the extent you picture it with all but 2 groups getting axed

 

[Moguri]

The thing you are leaving out here is that Gfriend have had a consistent area of sales from around 70-100k for years with the first time they sold over 60k being with their 4th comeback and their sales would just always fluctuate around the same range which during this time girl groups were not selling 1 million albums and the most was under 500k and even 100k for a girl group was a huge milestone.

Gfriend had shown clear signs before Hybe bought Source Music that their album sales were stagnant in an expanding market so you can't use Gfriends album sales against them because Hybe knew what album sales they had going into it and if they thought they were going to magically give Gfriend a 5 year old group at the time which until Oh My Girl broke out was unheard of a group that old seeing any kind of exponential growth then that was a foolish thought.

I'm not sure how I left anything out, in the link I posted their entire sales history is listed for every individual album!

And yes just like I said in the previous post, corporate people lie a lot and I do not believe Hybe ever had any intention to keep Gfriend around after how things went down. Ofc they would not promote that plan beforehand.

But based on the sales numbers, I still believe it does not make any sense to compare Gfriend to the SM groups we are talking about now. I also do not believe any executives that make those decisions take historcial girl group sales into account when making decisions, they only compare what current groups of big companys do right now.