The expanded agreement also gives HYBE\u2019s roster of artists and labels access to UMG\u2019s global network, according to the announcement.<\/p>\n
HYBE and UMG will additionally collaborate on artist promotions and marketing activities in North America under the oversight of Scooter Braun, CEO of HYBE America.<\/span><\/p>\n HYBE and UMG first teamed up in 2017 on megastars BTS, through a distribution agreement in Japan. <\/span><\/p>\n In 2021<\/a>, the companies expanded their relationship with a global strategic agreement which saw collaborations across multiple projects as well as HYBE\u2019s Weverse.<\/span><\/p>\n Universal’s Geffen Records and HYBE also announced a joint venture<\/a> to launch The Debut: Dream Academy \u2013 aimed to implement HYBE\u2019s “K-Pop methodology” in the US \u2013 in which six trainees were selected through a global audition process to become part of KATSEYE. The group will debut later this year.<\/span><\/p>\n According to the announcement on Tuesday (March 26), the new partnership was put together by UMG Chairman and CEO Sir Lucian Grainge, HYBE\u2019s Chairman Bang Si-Hyuk, and HYBE America\u2019s CEO Scooter Braun.<\/span><\/p>\n Commenting on the new partnership, Sir Lucian Grainge, Chairman and CEO of Universal Music Group, said: \u201cChairman Bang, Scooter Braun and Jiwon Park have brought an innovative and progressive vision to the industry that underscores music\u2019s global power.”<\/p>\n “With the opportunities in engaging the superfan via their groundbreaking Weverse model, we\u2019re thrilled to grow and expand our platform business collaboration as we evolve together leading the music industry\u2019s evolution.\u201d<\/p>\n Sir Lucian Grainge, Universal Music Group<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Added Grainge: “With the opportunities in engaging the superfan via their groundbreaking Weverse model, we\u2019re thrilled to grow and expand our platform business collaboration as we evolve together leading the music industry\u2019s evolution.\u201d<\/p>\n “We are certain that this will expand our global footprint, while benefiting our fans, artists, and labels.\u201d<\/p>\n Bang Si-Hyuk, HYBE<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Bang Si-Hyuk, chairman of HYBE, added: \u201cA partnership of this magnitude only comes together when both sides are equally committed to continued growth. UMG is an iconic music company and together with HYBE, the potential is endless.<\/p>\n “We are certain that this will expand our global footprint, while benefiting our fans, artists, and labels.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThis incredible partnership between our companies will ensure mutual benefits and\u00a0 collaborations for the fans, teams, artists, and labels around the world.”<\/strong><\/p>\n Scooter Braun, HYBE America<\/strong><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Scooter Braun,\u00a0 CEO of HYBE America said: \u201cThis incredible partnership between our companies will ensure mutual benefits and\u00a0 collaborations for the fans, teams, artists, and labels around the world.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThe opportunity created here not only allows us to help our current\u00a0 roster, but grow opportunities for independent artists and labels globally. <\/span><\/p>\n “I\u2019ve known and\u00a0 respected Sir Lucian Grainge for many years, and alongside Chairman Bang and HYBE CEO\u00a0 Jiwon Park, we look forward to the undeniable opportunities that will come from this partnership\u00a0 as we together grow the music industry\u2019s future.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n Today’s news of UMG’s deeper collaboration with HYBE’s Weverse arrives just a few weeks after MBW asked in an ‘MBW Reacts’ article if HYBE’s Weverse platform could offer a template for Universal Music Group’s courting of ‘superfans’ in 2024?<\/p>\n The Weverse<\/strong> app has previously branched out beyond HYBE-signed acts, building fan communities for the likes of<\/a> singer-songwriter Gracie<\/strong> Abrams<\/strong> (Interscope Records), Alexander<\/strong> 23<\/strong> (Republic) and Jeremy<\/strong> Zucker<\/strong> (Interscope).<\/p>\n As we noted a few weeks ago, all three of those artists are signed to Universal<\/strong> labels, following an experimental deal<\/a> inked between Weverse and UMG<\/strong> that dates back to 2020.<\/p>\n According to HYBE’s recently published financial results for FY 2023, the company’s revenues generated by its ‘Fan Club etc.’ reached 91.18 billion South Korea Won<\/strong> last year.<\/p>\n That revenue figure converts to USD $69.7 million<\/strong> as per the average annual exchange rate published by the IRS, and was up\u00a035.9% YoY.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n HYBE reported that Weverse counted 10.1 million<\/strong> Monthly Active Users at the end of Q4 (the three months to end of December), versus 10.6 million MAUs in the prior quarter (Q3 2023).<\/p>\n \u00a0Weverse<\/strong>\u00a0 revealed in its 2023 Fandom trend report<\/a>, published in December, that those 10 million<\/strong>\u00a0monthly active users are located across\u00a0245<\/strong>\u00a0countries and regions.<\/p>\n The platform says that it witnessed a \u201csignificant surge\u201d in new users in 2023 in Asia including\u00a0Korea<\/strong>,\u00a0China<\/strong>,\u00a0Indonesia<\/strong>, the\u00a0Philippines<\/strong>,\u00a0India<\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0Japan<\/strong>\u00a0along with United States \u201cserving as focal points for new user acquisition\u201d.<\/p>\n Additionally,\u00a0Weverse<\/strong>\u00a0says that it experienced \u201cimpressive growth rates\u201d in\u00a0Africa<\/strong>\u00a0(+46.8%) and the\u00a0Middle<\/strong>\u00a0East<\/strong>\u00a0(+25%) in 2023.<\/p>\n Weverse reported that in 2023, each user on its platform spent an average of\u00a0215 minutes<\/strong>\u00a0per month (+46% YoY<\/strong>) and visited the platform for an average of\u00a010.2<\/strong>\u00a0days per month (+10.4% YoY<\/strong>).<\/p>\n Today’s news lands nearly three months after\u00a0Sir Lucian Grainge<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0noted in his New Year note to UMG staff that,<\/a> following UMG\u2019s push for a transition to an \u2018artist-centric\u2019 royalties model in streaming last year, \u201cThe next focus of our strategy will be to grow<\/em>\u00a0the pie for all artists, by strengthening the artist-fan relationship through\u00a0superfan experiences<\/strong>\u00a0and products.\u201d<\/p>\n Grainge said at the time that UMG is \u201calready in advanced discussions with [its] platform partners regarding this phase and will have more to announce in the coming months\u201d.<\/p>\n He added: \u201cIn addition, we will be building our in-house capabilities through groundbreaking partnerships that will accelerate our artists\u2019 ability to create experiential, commerce and content offerings for their fans.”<\/p>\n The superfan segment of the market promises to be a lucrative revenue source for the major music companies.<\/p>\n US market monitor\u00a0Luminate<\/b>, in its Year End report for 2023 (published<\/span><\/a> in January), revealed that 18%<\/b>\u00a0of US music listeners are superfans. This is up from\u00a015%<\/b>\u00a0reported by Luminate<\/span><\/a>\u00a0for the first half of last year.<\/p>\n Luminate also reported that those superfans spend\u00a068%<\/b>\u00a0more money on music each month and\u00a076%<\/b>\u00a0more on physical music per month than the average U.S. music listener.<\/p>\n In\u00a0Goldman Sachs<\/span><\/a>\u2019 latest\u00a0Music In The Air\u00a0<\/i>report,\u00a0 it\u00a0claimed<\/span><\/a>\u00a0that if\u00a020%<\/b>\u00a0of paid streaming subscribers today could be categorized as \u2018superfans\u2019 and, furthermore, if these \u2018superfans\u2019 were willing to spend\u00a0double<\/b>\u00a0what a non-superfan spends on digital music each year, it implies a\u00a0$4.2 billion<\/b>\u00a0(currently untapped) annual revenue opportunity for the record industry<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" HYBE has struck an expanded long-term agreement with Universal Music Group<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":197430,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[129816,131099,130640],"class_list":["post-194784","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-hybe","tag-superfans","tag-weverse"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194784","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=194784"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194784\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/197430"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=194784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=194784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=194784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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