[theqoo] HYBE "WE'RE NOT DOING ALBUM PUSH, SERIOUS PROBLEM RAISING ISSUES WITHOUT CONFIRMATION"

1. Hybe doesn't commit album push

HYBE-affiliated labels do not push albums. This is a fact that HYBE has already responded to ADOR several times, and is also recorded several times in the SNS conversation records between Hybe CEO Park Jiwon and CEO Min.

Nevertheless, after the album sales of various artists, both internal and external, such as Seventeen, TXT, Enhyphen, Le Sserafim, TWS, ILLIT, IVE, and RIIZE, were announced, CEO Min said, “Isn’t this pushing albums or hoarding?” They have constantly raised unfounded suspicions about the album sales of other artists. In particular, regarding ILLIT's recent album sales, ADOR's L00 VP (Vice President) recently met with external analysts and said, 'It appears that ILLIT's first week sales is the results of album push. Isn’t it suspicious?’ she continued to question.

To justify her claim, CEO Min even claims that ‘NewJeans was recommended to push albums’ by HYBE. However, this was only part of an informal conversation, and as I mentioned before, we explained several times that there was no official 'push', and in fact, HYBE was conducting business with a clear principle of 'no album push to compete for the first week sales'.

In order to respond to the issue raised this time, HYBE has conducted a thorough investigation of all albums sold last year, including whether there were any returns through push-out, and will transparently share the confirmed information.

First of all, in 2023, HYBE artists released 17 new albums and sold a total of 43.6 million copies. As a result of this investigation, there were a total of 140,000 returned albums, 70,000 each, for the past two albums, which is equivalent to 0.32% of total album sales. 2023, when this situation occurred, was a year in which album sales fluctuated. There was an upward demand forecast considering that album sales were strong at the time, but as market conditions changed, the error in demand forecast was bound to be higher than in the past. In this process, the above two returns were carried out as the practitioner permitted return conditions that were not specified in the contract. However, immediately after confirming the fact of the return transaction in this case, the company strengthened its internal control and made it impossible to verbally negotiate a return that deviated from the principles, and it was confirmed that no additional return cases actually occurred after that.

At the time of the release of NewJeans' 2nd EP 'Get Up', ADOR was also optimistic about the market situation and was planning to produce 3.5 million albums, but currently, we have a whopping 1.61 million albums left in stock. No matter how hard we try, it is difficult to completely avoid the volatility of industry conditions and the unpredictability of demand forecasts in the entertainment industry.

In a statement sent to our company, CEO Min said, “In order to artificially inflate the sales volume for one week after release, that is, ‘first week sales volume,’ we used distributors or overseas subsidiaries to place large orders or hastily organize fan events to inflate sales volume.” However, this definition is the same as saying that NewJeans’ 2nd EP ‘Get Up’ sales activity is equivalent to a push.

UMJ, a Japanese distributor, initially expressed difficulty purchasing more than 90,000 copies of the album, but later, through discussions in which ADOR also participated, 60,000 copies were added, for a total of 150,000 copies sold to UMJ, which was ADOR's bulk order. Due to this order, the current inventory at the distributor amounts to 110,000 pieces. In addition, in order to absorb some of the increased volume, ADOR held an additional fan signing event on August 20, 2023, with all NewJeans members participating, and this may be considered a last minute organized fan event.

This kind of activity is part of a sales promotion, but the argument that it is legitimate when NewJeans does it, and that it is an act of "album push" when done by other artists.

HYBE expresses serious concerns about her actions and intentions in raising the easily misunderstood issue of ‘pushing out albums’ without proper confirmation. If she really thought that album push existed within Hybe and was a big problem in the K-Pop market, she should have thoroughly verified the facts first.

[...]

source: https://m.entertain.naver.com/article/609/0000854819

original post: here

1. Ah please don't drag other artists into this and just fight between yourself

2. She had proofs though, you're the ones who consider it not to be proofs ㅋㅋㅋㅋ

3. They're both dislikable

4. So no mention of sajaegi?

5. Hmm yeah Min Heejin is kinda inconsistent

6. And you're not gonna mention Le Sserafim's plagiarism

7. What does IVE and RIIZE have to do with this... Stop grabbing other's hair

8. This is too long

9. Stop dragging my bias into this 🤦‍♀️