“Only 50,000 won”, the shocking “appearance fee” of Kpop idols on music broadcasts has been revealed

YouTuber Lee Jin Ho exposed the meager amount broadcast stations pay Kpop idols to appear on music shows. 

On November 10th, Lee Jin Ho, a former entertainment reporter, uploaded a video on his YouTube channel with the title, “Very serious music program appearance fee situation”.

In the video, Lee Jin Ho showed a grave expression and said, “I can’t keep my mouth shut at such a rattling fee. The appearance fee for music shows has nothing to do with the number of people. I see they pay solo artists and idol groups the same amount.”

The YouTuber then added, “Unless you are a famous idol group, you cannot receive more than 500,000 won in appearance fee. It can be said  that a super-large ultra-class star will only be paid 500,000 won. The average idol got paid 100,000 won on terrestrial broadcasters, while Mnet’s ‘M Countdown’ only pays about 50,000 won and even asked to remove the tax invoice.”

Meanwhile, regarding the cost an idol group has to pay to appear on a music show, Lee Jin Ho said, “In the case of a popular idol, it costs about 60 million won a week. Usually, when you release an album, you work for about two weeks, so it costs 120 million won for two weeks. Other idol groups were spending about 30 million won per week,” he explained.

Read also: NCT Dream’s Daesang at Genie Music Awards is flooded with controversial opinions 

However, most idol groups don’t think of music shows as a means to make money. Instead, they gain greater benefits such as increasing awareness about the group or promoting their album through music shows. This is also the reason why idols continue performing on these broadcasts even when it costs them tens of millions of won. 

Below are some comments from netizens:

• These days, music broadcasting will not change because of the large promotion and marketing effect
• It means that each broadcasting company is not disappointed at all
• If there is no consumers, there will be no suppliers
• Still, that fee is much lower than expected
• Considering this, isn’t it impossible to survive unless you come from large agencies?

Source: Wikitree