Idols from the same company often show off their close relationships and promote synergy together through company content or concerts. However, these “family members” were recently seen facing each other on charts and music shows as they made their comebacks around the same time.
JYP’s girl group ITZY returned to K-pop scene on January 8th, while their junior group from the same agency NMIXX, who made their comeback on the 15th, only a week later. Considering the duration of a comeback promotion, the two teams could not avoid competition in terms of albums and music charts. In November last year, the same thing happened to SM when aespa and Red Velvet made their comebacks consecutively with a gap of only 5 days. However, the two groups had a healthy competition and ended their promotion with great performances.
In the past, artists from the same agency often avoided comeback competition at the same time. If this happened, it would be hard for them all to gain high points on digital charts and album sales performances. However, big K-pop agencies do not seem to care about this situation these days, but why?
The biggest reason is that these companies have applied the multi-production center/label system. Currently, the “BIG 4” K-pop agencies HYBE, SM, YG and JYP have all introduced the multi-production center system. Starting with JYP in 2017, HYBE is also operating the system through several labels, and YG just introduced their multi-production center system when they begin the “SM 3.0” project. YG also established a new center for multi-organization and producer for each artist.
This multi-production system allows artists from large agencies to prepare for their comeback, including album production, at the same time because they already have their own team. This system not only solves the problem faced by agencies with many artists when making a comeback lineup in the past but also bring about successful comebacks with high-quality promotions.
Another reason is that the risks when making continuous comebacks have also been reduced as they already established a different production center optimized for each artist in terms of songs, concepts, and promotion direction.
An SM official explained the advantages of changing to the multi-production system, saying “Each center is operated through independent decision-making based on accumulated know-how, so creative and diverse content can be presented in various ways according to the plans and directions of each artist”.
The K-pop market is expanding dramatically and fans’ demands are also increasing, it is believed that letting groups of the same company make comebacks at the same time may not create a “family fight”, but rather a chance to showcase their synergy. The artists’ chart competition nowadays is not limited to domestic charts, so from the perspective of a company, there’s no big risk of introducing overlapping comebacks.
In addition, the fact that same-agency artists can even expect positive effects from supporting each other in various content, such as dance challenges, when doing comeback activities together. Allowing more artists to make their comebacks within a year also helps the company reduce the waiting gaps and gain higher profits.
Source: Daum
