I'm curious about Hybe's decision to keep Fromis while disbanding Nuest and Gfriend

TLDR

Fromis is the least popular group at Hybe, selling under 200,000 albums. After moving to Pledis, they surpassing 100k in sales, but slowed down after losing a member. Other Hybe groups except BND (500k) sell over 1 million albums and even Nuest sold 200k before disbanding.

My theory is that Hybe likely kept Fromis, thinking 100k sales were huge enough for a gg. They weren't experienced with gg and even popular group like Gfriend didn't reach that. Mind you, in 2021, Itzy and Red Velvet sold around 200k-300k albums in the first month, which obviously 100k is quite a big deal for a new company with no experience like Hybe. For Nuest unfortunately, all Hybe bg were hitting 1 million sales at that time which the gap was really huge.

In 2022, Fromis had comebacks in January and June. Newjeans hadn't debuted, and Le Sserafim faced a scandal. Hybe might have felt pressure to re-sign Fromis, perhaps as a backup. We know Hybe doubted Newjeans' success, and Lessera is still fighting for Garam.

Fromis took a one year hiatus and only one cb this year right after the success of Hybe new gg. I understand they lost a member and face some minor controversy, but not like it's new in Kpop. The company obviously pay less attention to the group now and didn't want to invest much in them. Luckily, Fromis renewed their contract last year before Hybe gg explode in popularity; otherwise, they might have faced a fate like Gfriend especially as Pledis will debuting new gg soon too.

Quote from bartkun

the real TLDR is that fromis_9 were the busiest HYBE group this late summer/fall season

they've had so packed schedule that there were multiple times when they've performed on two university/city festivals during same day

if you look up popular fancam youtubers like Daft Taengk, Mera, Spinel and Coating you will see tons of fromis_9 fancams filmed this year

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also why would you disband such visually pleasant group?

frommo.jpeg

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Obviously, Hybe/Pledis needs them to make money somehow. They just renewed their contract, and Hybe can't do anything to get rid of them. Making them sit in the basement for another year until their disbandment will be a waste. University/city festivals are cute, though; surely, Hybe wouldn't make much out of it. Huge company groups usually attend it just for exposure, and they're just going to a big one, not making it like their only schedule for a whole year.

To answer your last question, because they're tanking real bad compared to Hybe standards.

Quote from Dreamer95

Nuest left voluntarily tho

Quote from gerrard174

nuest left cause the members wanted to leave

Pledis went all out with promotion buses and posters to celebrate the 10th anniversary before the disbandment date. You don't plan such things for a group if they weren't expected to renew. The members didn't leave 'willingly' because they were done being idols or being in a group.

Aaron say this

It's not like they can be like, "Hey, Hybe kicked us out 'cause we weren't bringing in the cash." Even Gfriend members are keeping tight-lipped about it. And coincidentally, those two were also the group with lowest sales in Hybe. I thought we all know that contract negotiations didn't happen in just a month or two.

Quote from BEG4DAWIN

The label / artist split is pretty good for the artist in festival performances, so the artist make good money from these festivals, specially acts that are not big enough to have their own tour.

So even if it is rounding error type income for Hybe, it is better than nothing.

Yeah, like I said, Hybe/Pledis needs them to rake in some cash too. They got them to sign the contract before their new group blew up. But the money Fromis pull in is peanuts compared to what other Hybe groups make from sales, endorsements, tours, merch, and whatnot. Hybe can't kick them out now, so at least Fromis make something rather than sitting in the basement doing nothing.

By the way, Lsf alone pulled in a whopping 11.8 billion yen (that's $81 million) just in Japan for the first half of this year. That's the crazy difference we're talking about and the real value that Hybe see in their groups. Honestly, let's be real – those all festivals Fromis goes to won't even come close to giving them a million dollars.

Quote from bartkun

thanks for those numbers

I love my Le Sserafim but I want to say many times people forget how much actually SouMu spends for those music videos and other promotion things

so overall the profit made by groups through sales, commercials, and tv gigs grows up

but in same time usually people don't pay attention that label needs to pay for all that music videos, and if we look at how often new groups are releasing them it means the crazy amount of money is pumped into that early stage of career

both NewJeans and Le Sserafim released tons of content

altough it's different agency but it's same with IVE

in the past it was like that: kpop group had a comeback - oh ok then they will release one mv

now not only more groups are doing pre-release MV's

but they are even releasing 3 music videos to one comeback which is crazy, crazy, it kind of becomes similar to what artists in the western countries do

altough kpop groups are making comebacks/releasing new albums more often

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See, you understand this well. That's the biggest reason why Fromis isn't a big deal for Hybe because the girls can't give back much to their company. While both Lsf and Newjeans receive significant investment, they also generate returns. You can't compare those old time when kpop didn't sell as crazy as today and generate profits as much as now. Before, getting cfs and being ambassadors was a luxury, even for popular groups. But now, these girl groups probably make hundreds of thousands just from one of those deals. And for Ive, Nj and Lsf for example, all members have their own cfs and BA deals. Imagine how much money they make by that alone. Also, Lsf made $7.9 million USD from touring in four Asian countries.

To sum it up, we're talking about a company that wants a lot of money, not a charity that spends a bunch without getting much back. Will hybe and other companies let their groups 'wasting money' on multiple mv, promotion, etc... if those groups unable to generate great profit for them?