Big Hit Entertainment and Naver are planning to join hands with Universal Music Group, one of the world’s top three record labels and producers.
According to an exclusive report from Hankyung, beNX, which is a Big Hit Entertainment subsidiary label jointly owned by Naver and Big Hit Entertainment following Big Hit Entertainment’s acquisition of V Live, is pursuing the opportunity to conduct global business with Universal Music Group. It is likely that beNX and Universal Music Group will establish a new joint venture based in the United States.
BeNX currently operates the online fan community Weverse, where artists and fans can freely communicate with each other and even hold concerts and individual broadcasts in the future, as Naver secured a 49% stake in beNX and is planning to integrate their V Live platform into Weverse.
Universal Music Group is home to a number of global pop stars, including Rihanna, Taylor Swift, Maroon 5, and Mariah Carey. Universal Music Group artists are expected to join the fan community platform following the joint project between beNX and Universal Music Group. Currently, four artist from Universal Music Group are already on Weverse: Gracie Abrams, YUNGBLUD, New Hope Club, and Alexander 23.
Universal Music Group chose to enter the K-Pop platform after analyzing the data and seeing the explosive growth of the industry, especially the online streaming and paid products K-Pop fans participated in. Due to the Coronavirus, non-contact content consumption increased dramatically, with V Live’s paid content increasing by over 400%, and the number of transactions increased by over 25 times.
Unfortunately, Big Hit Entertainment stated they are unable to confirm the report at this time.
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