Unfortunately there is no hope for 4th gen nugus with the amount of ggs top companies are putting out

During the 2nd gen top agencies had just one gg at the time with the exception of SM who had 2. So you naturally had a lot of smaller agencies filling in the gap which gave us groups like Tara, BEG, Secret, After School, 4minute to name a few.

3rd gen was more or less the same. We had Twice, Blackpink, Red Velvet and that's it basically. So again we had girl groups like Mamamoo, Gfriend, Oh My Girl rise.

Now Hybe alone is about to have 3 ggs(4 if you count Geffen) within the same generation. JYP has 2(4 if you count NiziU and VCHA, both promoted in Korea), SM will be debuting 2nd gg soon. All within one single generation.

If you think about it, the position of "small companie groups" are now actually taken by top midsize companies - Starship's Ive, Cube's Gidle, Black Eyed Pilseung's Stayc are this gen's "dark horses". By the time we actually get to midsize level companies we are already deep in the flop zone. IST's Weeekly (Apink juniors), RBW's Purple Kiss(Mamamoo juniors), Woollim's Rocket Punch(Lovelyz juniors), FNC's Cherry Bullet(AOA juniors). This is just sad. Even going viral doesn't help anymore. The hype vanishes as soon as new shiny big company gg drops. Cause people have only a limited attention span for idol groups, you can't expect people to keep up with so many groups.

Quote from ellenote

The market for girl groups is becoming extremely over-saturated, It's no wonder so many companies are struggling to stay afloat. I really don't know why the Big 3 needs all of these new groups. I really don't get it.

To keep the investors happy.

Entertainment in general have become very investor focused lately. It is not just Kpop, even Hollywood franchises are facing the same issue. The boomer investors from wall street who have no fucking idea how entertainment works have started to heavily invest into these companies as a way to diversify their portfolios and these people are expecting entertainment companies to work exactly like everything else does and only care about such buzz words like "growth", "diversification", "sustainibility".

Just doing "well" is not enough, you have to always keep growing and diversifying your business to keep them interested.

Quote from neonanton1

JYP and Hybe have like 4+ girl groups each like why we need that much

At least one of them can take care of 4 groups. The other can't even take care of one group but keeps debuting more.

Quote from icyruios

Because no one checks you out. I'm saying this because I'm also guilty of it, I've also kinda reached the stage that I'm lazy to even check out new groups now.

I should've also added the fact that the 3rd gen groups are staying active to the mix. During previous gens by their 5th year Twice, BP and RV would already be doing acting and whatever weird things SNSD and WG members were doing. But 3rd gen came out so strong that these groups stay in the idol industry. Top 3 remaining is a huge challenge not just to nugu groups but even the popular groups. Just yesterday I posted about mama votes and how low the 4th gen ggs are compared to Twice and Jisoo.

Quote from wsoet

Let's not forget that JYPE had both Wonder Girls and Miss A during the Second Generation.

Nah, that was 2.5 gen man, come on, WG already peaked and got shipped to US before JYP debuted Miss A and you're telling me they are the same gen? How can you put 2010 groups in the same gen as TVXQ, SuJu, SNSD, BigBang, BEG, make it make sense.

Quote from K-PL

Kakao, which is larger than Hybe, own or distribute for these 3 companies and also SM.

Kakao distributes for like half of the industry so I don't get what your point is. If you're trying to say that Kakao has contributed fo success of those groups you'd be wrong. Kakao isn't an entertainment company, they don't debut or produce groups. They also own a lot of the flopping groups if you're gonna go there.

Quote from bartkun

without that drama Fifty Fifty would probably bag multiple awards, not just rookie but maybe even best song in some smaller awards shows, Cupid twin version has near 700M listens just on Spotify

Nah, they weren't getting any attention, it was just song. The lawsuit actually made their names known ironically.

Hikey and Kiss Of Life are interesting groups and I wish they escape the nugudom but nothing suggests that is happening so far.