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If K-pop is “in crisis,” as HYBE founder/chairman Bang Si-hyuk declared in March, it didn’t show in his company’s first quarter financial results released Tuesday (May 2). A nearly three-fold bump in album sales drove earnings for the South Korean music company in the first three months of the year, as it continued to demonstrate it can flourish without the BTS group activities that previously dominated its balance sheet.
HYBE recorded revenue of 410.64 billion won ($306.2 million), a jump of 44.1% from the previous year’s first quarter, with adjusted EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes and depreciation) edging up 12.5% to 72.08 billion won ($53.8 million).
Company executives pointed to the combined strength of Tomorrow X Together’s The Name Chapter: Temptation, which sold 3.14 million copies in the quarter and reached No. 1 on the Billboard 200; and Seventeen’s FML, which sold 4.55 million copies in its first week (which the CEO called “an unprecedented record in K-pop history”), for generating overall album revenue of 184.29 billion won ($137.5 million) — or 45% of HYBE’s total for the quarter. Solo albums from BTS members Jimin (FACE, which sold 1.45 million units on its first day and reached No. 2 on the Billboard 200) and Suga’s D-Day also helped underpin the total.
Overall, HYBE recorded 234.49 billion won ($174.9 million) in artist-direct involvement revenue, up 53.9% year over year. Album sales helped offset a 58.8% drop in concert revenue to 25.23 billion won ($18.8 million), a falloff that HYBE executives did not address in their earnings call.
In his March remarks, Bang warned that the K-pop company may only have a brief window in which to capitalize on its global success — and that K-pop as an industry could only grow “by targeting both domestic and international markets.”
Kyung-Jun Lee, HYBE’s CFO, said Tuesday that “2023 will prove to be a year when the strength of our multi-label strategy will translate into physical outcomes,” noting that more BTS members are planning solo projects, while Seventeen, Tomorrow X Together and Enhypen are all scheduled to launch world tours.
HYBE is also debuting a new boy band, BoyNextDoor, on May 30, which CEO Ji-Won Park said would feature “honest music about everyday life that peers in their age group will be able to relate to.” Park said that the company would announce more news about its U.S. girl group project being jointly developed by HYBE America and Universal Music Group, and “provide more directionality on HYBE America,” in its second-quarter earnings call.
The surge in album sales also positively impacted the Korean music company’s artists-indirect involvement category, which rose by 32.8% to 176.14 billion won ($131.4 million). HYBE said that the film BTS: Yet To Come in Cinemas, which chronicles the group’s October concert in Busan, South Korea, has performed well in theaters around the world since being released in February. Nonetheless, revenue in the company’s merchandising and licensing category fell slightly by 0.9% to 68.92 billion won ($51.4 million) for the quarter.
The Korean music company continued to tout the growth of its artists-to-fans engagement platform, Weverse, which debuted in 2019. Monthly average users (MAUs) rose by 46% to 9.36 million year-on-year, and the average time spent on Weverse has increased over the last three quarters. One analyst noted, however, that the average revenue per paying user (ARPPU), had fallen in the first quarter compared to the same period in 2022. In response, said Lee, “We looked at 2023 as a year where we really initiated more aggressive global expansion and launched a diverse new lineup of services and actually stabilized the services as part of our platform.”
Those new services include Weverse DM, a subscription private chat-with-artists service that launched on Tuesday; digital currency Weverse Jelly, launched in March; and Weverse by Fans, a service for fan-designed merchandise due to debut in June. Idol group AKB48 and other Japanese artists have been joining the platform, and some North American artists are expected to come on board in the second half of the year.
The platform’s Weverse Live, which has video-streamed everything from artists’ birthdays to large-scale festivals and concerts like BTS’ Busan show, is also growing rapidly. It recorded 460 million views in the first quarter — almost a three-fold increase from 160 million views in the third quarter of last year when HYBE launched the livestreaming service.
With all the new initiatives, Lee addressed investor concerns that the company’s continued spending on new artists and new businesses may potentially weaken its earnings fundamentals. “I am aware that there are concerns that in the absence of BTS as a group whether we will be able to manage the cost pressure amid declining revenue,” he said. But despite a lack of BTS group activities, HYBE’s operating margin of 12.8% in the quarter, he noted, nearly equaled its 13% operating margin from a year ago, which he attributed to “the combined result of our multi-label production system, leveraging a diverse pipeline of artists, coupled with efficient application of our in-house solutions.”
Looking forward, Lee promised a continued push by the company to diversify its artist roster and geographical reach. “Although we are mostly focused on K-pop artists at the moment, three to five years from now, as we start expanding into the global markets, including the U.S., Europe and Japan, we will definitely have established greater balance in terms of our geographical coverage,” he said.
Grammy Award-winning rapper Lil Wayne visited the World Series champion Houston Astros on Tuesday night (May 2) before their game against the San Francisco Giants.
The Louisiana-born rapper was in town for a show later Tuesday, but stopped by the ballpark to hang with the Astros before taking the stage.
“It meant the world,” Lil Wayne said. “They showed me way too much love and it seemed like they’re a pretty big fan and I’m a fan as well so it was all good.”
He was thrilled to meet Astros manager Dusty Baker and Hall of Famer Reggie Jackson, who now works as a special adviser to Houston owner Jim Crane.
“I just pulled both of them to the side and had a long speech, a long talk with Mr. October and Dusty,” he said. “It was awesome.”
He also came away with a jersey signed by several players that he said he planned to hang on his wall. He was asked where the experience stacked up in his life.
“I don’t rank them, but this is pretty up there,” he said.
As Academy of Country Music CEO Damon Whiteside prepares for the 58th edition of the ACM Awards to return to Amazon’s Prime Video on May 11, he says lessons learned from the 2022 edition are guiding this year’s show.
Last year, the ACM Awards became the first major awards ceremony to switch from broadcast to a streaming platform. “There was a chunk of people that didn’t know we moved from CBS,” Whiteside says. “What we’ve learned is we have to really lean into our core country audience and make sure they’re aware the show is happening. For anybody that is not a regular Prime Video user, we need to bring them into the Prime Video ecosystem and show them how simple it is.”
To make it as accessible as possible, Amazon is offering the show for free to subscribers and non-subscribers alike across more than 240 countries and territories via Prime Video and the Amazon Music channel on Twitch. The full show will stream the next day for free on Amazon Freevee.
(Though rare, Prime Video has offered livestreams in the past, including for Kanye West and Drake‘s “Free Larry Hoover” benefit concert in 2021. Amazon could not be reached for comment by press time.)
It helps that this year, the show’s co-hosts are two of the biggest stars in the world: Dolly Parton (who hosted last year with Jimmie Allen and Gabby Barrett) and Garth Brooks. Whiteside says he’s still “pinching myself” that the music icons are emceeing the two-hour show, which will stream commercial-free from the Ford Center at the Star in Frisco, Tex.
After Parton hosted last year, “Our goal right away was ‘How can we get Dolly back involved again?’” Whiteside says. Once she was on board, the idea came to pair her with Brooks, who has never hosted an awards show before. “They’re close friends, admirers of each other, so it was actually very organic,” he continues. “We couldn’t have a better pair than the two of them to be the face of the show because we’re a global show and they’re global superstars.”
This year’s show has been thrown the curveball of the Writers Guild of America strike against the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which started at midnight Tuesday (May 2). However, a source tells Billboard that the script was completed before the strike began and the show is not expected to be affected even if the strike is still ongoing.
This year marks the ACM Awards’ return to the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex for the first time since its 50th anniversary show in 2015 (last year’s ceremony was held at Las Vegas’ Allegiant Stadium). The show’s host venue, the Ford Center at the Star, serves as the world headquarters for the Dallas Cowboys, who are partners for this year’s event. “Ever since I took this job [in 2019], my board said we need to work with the Cowboys again,” Whiteside says. “They’re amazing partners and Texas is a great market.”
HARDY leads all nominees at this year’s show with seven nods, followed by Lainey Wilson with six. Cole Swindell, Kane Brown, Luke Combs and Miranda Lambert each have five, while Chris Stapleton and Morgan Wallen landed four.
This year’s awards will feature several changes. The songwriter of the year category has been split into songwriter of the year and artist-songwriter of the year awards, while the criteria for album of the year eligibility shifted from 51% to 75% previously unreleased material. Most notably, the entertainer of the year category has expanded from five to seven nominees.
“We have so many amazing entertainer nominees that we’d like to showcase more of a breadth of them and [the expansion] gives more opportunity for more artists to have that spotlight,” Whiteside says. “It gives seven artists now the opportunity to say, ‘I’m an entertainer of the year nominee.’ So, it was to diversify, but also to give more artists the opportunity to be able to wear that badge of honor.”
The show, which is produced by Dick Clark Productions, also has a new executive producer in Raj Kapoor, who takes over for R.A. Clark, who “was ready to pass the baton,” Whiteside says. “We love him and never want to see him go, but we’re really excited about Raj,” who has worked on projects including the Academy Awards, the Grammy Awards and numerous Las Vegas residencies. “He’s got a really good sense of what country is about and who the artists are, but at the same time, he’s also got this experience from all these other shows,” Whiteside adds. “He’s got his finger on the pulse of pop culture and what the public wants.”
Kapoor is joined by fellow executive producers Barry Adelman and Fonda Anita as well as co-executive producer Patrick Menton. Whiteside serves as executive producer for the Academy.
Performers slated for the event include Jason Aldean, Brown, Combs, Lambert, Wilson, Swindell, Wallen, Jelly Roll, Keith Urban and Bailey Zimmerman.
For the first time since the pandemic began, the ACM Awards will return to a full slate of activities for the week. These include the ACM Lifting Lives benefit on May 10, featuring Wallen, Wilson, HARDY, ERNEST and Zimmerman and hosted at the golfing green of Topgolf the Colony.
For the streaming audience, another goal was figuring out how to enhance the show’s ability to push viewers to participating artists’ Amazon Music accounts. “There’s going to be this uber-location where we can push our viewers to discover everything about the [participating] artists,” Whiteside says. “We can literally within the show push people right into streaming music. I’m excited to see how that’s going to lift artists’ streaming numbers and sales numbers after the show.” Ahead of the ceremony, Amazon Music is offering an ACM Awards playlist celebrating this year’s nominees.
This year’s show concludes the ACM Awards’ initial two-year pact with Amazon, but Whiteside is optimistic that the two partners will find a way to move forward. “Streamers are very much about the metrics, and they do a lot of evaluating around how the show performs,” he says, but adds, “[Amazon is] hugely excited about this show. It’s a tentpole priority for them. We’ve been having discussions about ’24 and ’25. We’re really just focused on another stellar year and growing from last year. We’re hopeful this is a long-term partnership.”
The 58th ACM Awards are produced by Dick Clark Productions, which is owned by Penske Media Eldredge, a unit of Billboard’s parent, Penske Media Company.
IVE arrived on the K-pop scene in November 2020 and quickly became the industry’s next reliable hitmaker with three addictive yet distinctly unique singles: the exotically intriguing pop of “Eleven,” the snappy, runway-ready throbber “Love Dive,” and the Gloria Gaynor–sampling disco update “After Like.” But through the differing sounds, the girl group’s identity connected with K-pop fans thanks to undeniable cohesion and confidence to pull off whatever genre or concept that came next. That spirit stays strong in their first full-length album, the multidimensional I’ve IVE, which sees the K-pop stars to watch taking the next big step of their career alongside a new U.S. label partner in tow.
Even before IVE’s official debut, anticipation was already high for the six-piece led by Yujin and Wonyoung, two of the most popular members from the sensational-but-temporary girl group IZ*ONE (who earned three entries on the World Albums chart and six on World Digital Song Sales during their two-and-a-half years together), as well as fresh faces in eldest member Gaeul, Japan-born Rei, power vocalist Liz, and youngest member Leeseo. From high kicks off the ground to simultaneously spinning and singing, the group developed under Korean super-label Starship Entertainment stood out for moving equally as one, even with varying degrees of original star power between members.
The same substantial stability comes through in I’ve IVE as the girls previewed their LP with the fun and rowdy chant-a-long buzz track “Kitsch” before dropping the power-pop bomb lead single “I Am.”
Within the LP, IVE is keen to present themselves as whatever kind of girl group the listener may enjoy but with their own added bite of self-assurance. The first listen of the sunny “Not Your Girl” recalls any flirty, feel-good ditty until the lyrics make it clear they’re not staying unless there’s a commitment and intention from the love interest. Plus, the opening track, “Blue Blood,” takes a common belief in South Korea that one’s blood type predicts their personality for IVE to declare themselves pure-hearted and exceptional over a dark, marching beat. Other standouts include the bossa nova influences through a plead for honesty on “Lips,” while “Heroine” is an invocation of self-assurance written by Yujin told through quirky electro-pop production, and “Mine” explains adorable infatuation through angelic harmonies and candy metaphors penned by Wonyoung.
Yujin, Wonyoung, Gaeul and Rei all boast writing credits through the LP that IVE says spotlights their belief in self and one another above any style or sound.
“Power and confidence are, outright, the most key concept,” Wonyoung says during an evening Zoom interview with Billboard. The member most comfortable with English, Wonyoung’s warmness is palpable through the screen as she’s eager to speak about the group’s dreams and her perspectives on fame. As untouchable as IVE appear on stage, there’s an undeniable relatability from sitting down to talk with them. Liz has a hilarious, no-bars-held candidness to her responses. At the same time, Gaeul uses her perspective as the oldest to fill in any missing details from her members and ensures everyone gets due credit, including shouting out their leader’s abilities when Yujin prearranged schedule didn’t allow her to join this chat.
“We are very excited to show such a variety of music styles in IVE’s first album,” Yujin says in a statement to Billboard after the interview. “This album is super meaningful to me as it’s our first full-length album and also because I participated in writing the lyrics for the first time. This album is like a package of different versions of IVE, and it has the unique color of IVE. I hope you look forward to our album and many other plans.”
Learn more about IVE’s colors, plans and more below.
Congratulations on this impressive full album, IVe. What’s everyone’s favorite song on the album?
Wonyoung: Mine is “Mine,” I wrote the lyrics too, so, I love it.
Liz: My favorite song is our title track [single], “I Am.”
Gaeul: I like the song “Hypnosis” because me and Rei wrote the lyrics to it, and it was the most fun to write the lyrics for that song.
Leeseo: “Shine With Me” is my favorite song because Wonyoung wrote the lyrics to it to link us to our fans, DIVE. It’s a message to their fans and the melody is especially very emotional to me.
Rei: “Cherish” because when we first listened to the demo, I could imagine how the members would be able to sing the song. And then once I listened to the completed song, I really loved the way it turned out.
We’re only with the five of you today. Does anyone know Yujin’s favorite song?
Wonyoung: “Heroine” or “Kitsch,” maybe?
As you mentioned, you were very involved in a lot of the songwriting on this album, some of you even the sole lyricist. What are your songwriting processes like?
Wonyoung: At first, I just listen to the song, just to get the feeling and set my mind right, usually at my home or in my room. If I get a certain feeling, I just write the whole song first and then just make little mixes, little changes. I love the process and I really love writing lyrics.
Rei: Once I receive the song, it’ll will have a blank portion without the rap, so I just kind of imagine a story and write lyrics according to that.
IVE has been successful with just three singles, but now it’s a full-length album with many more songs. Why was now the right time to make a studio album with “Kitsch” and “I Am” for singles?
Wonyoung: We’ve always had the desire to show a full album and our full power. For “Love Dive,” “After Like” and “Eleven,” I think we just made steps and strides with little-but-strong energy between us and DIVE. Now, we just thought this is the time to show our full-length and full energy to them. We really prepared a lot for this season and, now, we are ready.
Gaeul: We chose “Kitsch” as the pre-release single because we want to show a side of IVE that we haven’t shown before and kind of break free from the image that we’ve always had as a group. We wanted to challenge ourselves. And I feel like “I Am” is the lead single because our album title is I’ve IVE, and we thought that “I Am,” as a track on its own, would fit the most to the concept of the album.
I’ve heard debates about this but, in your own words, what is IVE’s concept or main message?
Wonyoung: I think the most important concept of us is of self-loving and self-love. But not just for us, we always want to say, “Please love yourself” to all of the listeners too. The power and confidence is, outright, the most key concept for us.
There are great messages in the “Kitsch” video too: The “You’re so weird, don’t change” neon sign. Or your jackets with “Books, not gun. Culture, not violence” patches. Can you talk about other messages you’re embracing?
Wonyoung: Mainly, we wanted to say, not just for us, but that you can change like us and can do everything and anything like us. The main [point] was, it’s not just about us—join us, join our culture and join in on everything. We just wanted to give listeners the power of believing in themselves. If we’re honest, the sentence and mottos were a little in cooperation with our director and the director’s ideas too but we worked on it all together.
I want to also congratulate you because IVE just signed with Columbia Records. What can we look forward to with this partnership?
Wonyoung: We’re really honored for that. First, we are really excited to work with another label and with other places like Columbia. We are, right now, really excited, and we’re really looking forward to that right now. For the start with Columbia, we really want to reach out to global fans all over the world. We are, right now, preparing a lot for our global fans.
Are there any plans you can share right now? Any planned visits to the U.S.?
Wonyoung: First, our “Prom Queens” fan-meeting tour will start with the Asia tour, and, hopefully, in the future, we really want to reach out In America, and everywhere else overseas. And not just for fan concerts, but we really want to visit the world to perform our own concerts. So, just keep cheering for us and hopefully you all can join us soon.
I’ve IVE is your first record eligible for the album charts on Billboard. Do you have any chart dreams?
Wonyoung: Even from our first song, we are really honored to have our name on the Billboard chart and really thankful for that. Hopefully, one day, we really want to visit Billboard in America with the six of us. We will prepare a lot in preparation for that day.
You are all very strong and charismatic personalities on your own but also very cohesive as a team—your choreography is seamless even when you spin and kick. What’s your teamwork secret?
Wonyoung: I think it’s the power of believing in each other; we just have a strong sense of belief between us. I let them do everything they want and they let me do everything I want. I think that makes the best cooperation between us; the belief.
Rei: During dance practices, we’ll use counting to match each other. For a really important part, we’ll stop and repeat that part and keep repeating it so that during the actual performances, we’ll think of the practice in our minds. That’s also how we stay so in sync with each other.
Wonyoung: Dance practices are pretty intense. For a long time, we would make and work on the choreographies every day for six hours or something. I think it’s pretty intense, but we’re always enthusiastic to show our fans and DIVEs the performances so I think that is the motivation for us.
Gaeul: Also, Yujin really helps with the details during dance practices and is willing to teach individual members different parts. She really does her part as the leader of the group.
Similarly, how do you stay well? Fans can see you so busy but may also worry about your physical, emotional, and mental health. How do you stay strong?
Wonyoung: If there’s nothing scheduled for the day, I spend time all by myself, just recovering on the outside and, of course, on the inside. Actually, I love to work out and do a lot of different exercises. On an off day, I’ll concentrate on my inside by listening to music; just hanging out by myself and working out helps me too. It feels like I’m healing myself.
Leeseo: I make sure I’m sleeping a lot, making sure I’m taking my vitamins, and taking care of my body physically.
Liz: I believe that you have to be mentally strong, or internally strong, in order for you to be physically or outwardly strong. For me, I really focus on believing in myself and believing in my decisions.
You do show such strength and confidence in yourselves. Wonyoung, you’ve spoken about this in the past, but what would IVE’s advice be for people needing that extra confidence?
Wonyoung: I want to say, you have more of the good times than tough times. Tough times and bad comments do not take away everything that is good: just believe the good, know you’re a good person, and just concentrate on yourself, your positive relationships and the good times. I think that is the important thing—just don’t mind them.
Liz: I like to just focus on the nice people who are saying good things rather than giving attention to the haters or negativity. I think that you have to be certain in yourself so that you don’t get sidetracked by any hate.
Do you have any other messages? Maybe to the international fans hoping to see you soon?
Gaeul: We’re working really hard to reach our global fans, so I wish they’ll just wait a little bit longer for us.
Jessie Ware had a straightforward goal with her new album That! Feels Good! (released April 28) – “The goal was to make people dance and make them feel sexy and romantic,” the pop singer-songwriter tells the Billboard Pop Shop Podcast (listen to her full interview, below).
The new 10-track set, with production by Stuart Price and longtime collaborator James Ford, is a “delicious disco opus” and follows her warmly received 2020 album What’s Your Pleasure. The latter marked her highest-charting effort on the Official U.K. Albums chart (peaking at No. 3) and garnered Ware her first BRIT Award nomination for British album of the year.
“I wanted [the new album] to feel more live than What’s Your Pleasure?,” Ware continues, “but I still wanted there to be groove, and funk and soul dictating it – and elements of disco, of course. But to feel like a dance record, but a looser dance record, with a bit more color. That was the intention.”
So what’s changed for Ware in the nearly three years between What’s Your Pleasure? and That! Feels Good!? “I feel really centered and excited about putting music out,” she says. “I don’t kind of have that fear like I had before. What else has changed? The podcast [her hit show Table Manners, co-hosted with her mother Lennie Ware] has carried on. I’ve got another baby… I don’t know! I feel like a changed artist since the reception of What’s Your Pleasure?”
Ware will take That! Feels Good! on the road in the United States later this year, with a string of dates beginning in Chicago on Oct. 5. Before that, she’ll play the OUTLOUD @ WeHo Pride festival on June 2 in West Hollywood, Calif. in celebration of Pride Month.
Also on the new edition of the Pop Shop Podcast, we’ve got chart news on how Morgan Wallen continues to lead the Billboard 200 albums chart for an eighth week with One Thing at a Time, how Taylor Swift makes a splash on the list with a stunning 10 albums in the top 100 of the chart, and how for the first time ever, there are two regional Mexican songs in the top five (and 10!) of the Billboard Hot 100 songs chart.
The Billboard Pop Shop Podcast is your one-stop shop for all things pop on Billboard‘s weekly charts. You can always count on a lively discussion about the latest pop news, fun chart stats and stories, new music, and guest interviews with music stars and folks from the world of pop. Casual pop fans and chart junkies can hear Billboard‘s executive digital director, West Coast, Katie Atkinson and Billboard’s managing director, charts and data operations, Keith Caulfield every week on the podcast, which can be streamed on Billboard.com or downloaded in Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast provider. (Click here to listen to the previous edition of the show on Billboard.com.)
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