Chart crunching: Most competitive year, Empty houses, consolidation of Kpop - read it which way

    I was wondering how to measure which period (year) was the most competitive in Kpop?


    Thought the most RUDIMENTARY way would be simply to check the #1 s in an year, more the number #1s in the year, means more competitive the year, means more the competition, so took a shot at it, using Circle Digital Weekly.


    Please note RUDIMENTARY, before you jump this method :-) , ideally it would be great to have all the releases in any period etc., but it is what I have and have time for, but maybe this will tempt the objectors to come up with a better method.


    My "flawed" assumption being "more competition = less domination" & vice versa.


    A bit of Cunningham's Law, which states that "The best way to get the right answer on the internet is not to ask a question; it's to post the wrong answer. This is because people are more likely to correct a wrong answer than to answer a question. "


    Here are the results.


    2010-34 songs in 51 weeks

    2011- 37/52

    2012 - 32/52

    2013 - 42/52

    2014 - 42/52

    2015- 40/52

    2016 - 38/52

    2017 - 41/52

    2018 - 25/52

    2019 - 29/52

    2020 - 15/52

    2021 - 20/52

    2022 - 19/52

    2023 - 14/52

    2024 - 18/ 52


    But now it raises other questions, than answer my initial thought.


    Does this represent that Kpop is getting massively consolidated and dominated by fewer acts, and lesser number of acts are debuting each year?

    Is that a good thing for the industry, for the art or not?


    2017-2018 might have been the pivotal year for

    From Downloads to Streaming,

    From non-Kpop to Kpop being dominant in Korean charts

    From good presence of soloists to domination by groups.



    Pitch in please.


    MassiveKpopFan  Kreatin  wsoet and who else?

    Edited once, last by bbgc ().

    Insightful 1 Like 1

    The decrease of different #1s in a year is because of 2 reasons:


    1. The drop of downloads and rise of streaming. Downloads obviously just reflect its impact in the short run unlike streaming. Prior to 2012 the digital market was completely dominated by downloads, which translated in songs having a super short run in the charts. In 2013 there was a price change in downloads which made them drop, streaming started to rise, but the digital market was still in the rise, so downloads were still really relevant and even rose after the initial drop of 2013, repeaking around 2017-2018. In late 2019 it started to be noticeable the download market was decreasing a lot (Gaon/Circle hide it but we could see it through the certifications), streaming started dominating everything to the point downloads are almost irrelevant nowadays.


    2. The system change of the charts in 2020. Summarized, they changed realtime charts with 24h charts, making it way more difficult for new songs to chart high. For some reason koreans seem to focus their streaming habits on charts a lot, so this caused a lot of artists that were guaranteed hitmakers thanks to people noticing about their songs through the charts directly disappear. Now promotions are way more important, that's why only we see few non idol artists topping the charts nowadays.


    I didn't expect this to be this long, sorry lmao.


    Regarding the topic, honestly the charts and the streaming habits of Korea change that much that I don't think we can measure something like competition with numbers. Also, Kpop dominates the charts now since 2022 I'd say, and it did during the 2nd gen (when Kpop probably peaked in Korea), but the truth is that during the 3rd gen most of the biggest hits of Korea were coming from soloists and non idols. Half or maybe more of those #1s during 2015-2020 are probably not idols, with some cases like 2019 when we didn't have any group song topping the charts until Psycho did in December. The korean charts are a representation of the korean public, not of Kpop.


    After all this boring essay... IMO the most competitive year was 2017, like I said I don't think we can measure it just with numbers, it's just my feeling as someone who has been checking the charts for longer and more frequently than I'd like to recognize lmao.

    Good points,


    Download vs. streaming.


    And yes, this measure did not separate out Kpop and non-Kpop.


    Gut instinct, my opinion is also 2017 was the toughest year.

    BTS, EXO, TWICE, BP, BOL4, PSY, SISTAR, return of SECH KIES, TAEYEON, SUNMI, IU, G-Dragon and Wanna One - it is long list of heavy hitters all releasing iconic songs - Spring Day, Through the Night, Ko Ko Bop, Gashina - many are signature songs for the acts. Ailee had her huge OST for Goblin.

    IU involved with 5 song PAKs.


    I actually started the exercise to see if I can quantify it. But even in such an year, Ailee, Twice, EXO, Taeyeon and IU scored multiple weeks with the same song.


    But 2017 might have been the pivotal year for

    From Downloads to Streaming,

    From non-Kpop to Kpop being dominant in Korean charts

    From good presence of soloists to domination by groups.

    I would add that kpop is becoming a lot more international and a shift to the West (aka US) so more groups are targeting international success as the rise of spotify and YT


    and thus groups that have a more international focus will sell more albums overseas than locally and thus groups who can cater to the international fans are generally those more established (or debut from the big4)


    the other thing is that groups now last longer (especially GG)

    previously (1st and 2nd gen and 3rd) GG would have most of their members quit/retire/disband on or before 1st contract renewal and therefore the fans of those groups would naturally move on (if there were still into kpop) to newer groups however these days more and more GG like the big3 of the 3rd gen - BP, Twice and RV are still around to consolidate their success and thus fans of those groups remain fans of those groups

    But this is only Korean digitals, so international sales don't matter much.


    Irrespective, it does feel like the industry has consolidated and there are fewer acts in play, compared to 2nd or even 3rd gen


    Longevity might be a reason.


    But between streaming, Kpop overtaking up become mainstream in Korea, since 2017, the direction of Kpop has changed.

    Quote from ISaidISaid

    I also wonder another thing : are kdrama less popular now in Korea leading to overall less interest in OST? Ot just OSTs not hitting as hard as they used to

    Not entirely.


    Melomance & LYW charted their OST's well.


    But like with other genres, Kpop domination is limiting OSTs on the charts as well, compared to the past.


    Maybe if IU breaks her own rules & does OST for her upcoming dramas, there would be a certain high charter

    2019.. Boy with Luv is right there...


    The rest of what you said is fair.

    The thing that I don’t really understand is why circle digital points are decreasing year by year.

    Is that because yt is becoming more bigger in Korea, and Circle chart still doesn’t include yt to accumulate digital points? Or smth else?

    Quote from ISaidISaid

    I also wonder another thing : are kdrama less popular now in Korea leading to overall less interest in OST? Ot just OSTs not hitting as hard as they used to

    Good ones are still charting good like Sudden Shower by Byeon Woo Seok.

    I just think that there aren’t that many memorable kdrama osts since Nextflix took over

    Quote from Taemin-Identity

    Is that because yt is becoming more bigger in Korea, and Circle chart still doesn’t include yt to accumulate digital points? Or smth else?

    Yes and No. 3 Factors, but yes on is Youtube -


    1. There's a major demographic bomb forming in Korea, where 5 years ago they had like.. 10% more 12-20 year olds then they have now. The amount of young people (one of the biggest consumers of "chart" music) dropping has decreased the total pool of Circle Points.


    2. Changes to social media and specifically virality on social media. 5 Years ago it was still though more domestic platforms, along with Youtube in general. Nowadays it's Tiktok and Youtube Shorts. There's a fragmenting of the monoculture of "chart toppers" that was prevalent through 2010-2020.


    3. The other part is Youtube Music. 20% of the market share (conservatively) is now on Youtube and Youtube doesn't count for Circle Chart Points.


    So slightly less people (as a %) being swept up by chart topping songs, dropping listener count amongst the most important demographics, and market share moving to a non circle chart platform.

    Fair points, But even if YT is 30%, Circle still represents 70% which is a huge sample data.


    So what does this drastic drop in competition since 2017 represent?

    It can't be that we have 10% less listening population, therefore 50% less competition.

    Like Disevidende said, there're less people using streaming services now. We can see it with circle points, but the most obvious thing is the Melon ULs, which is literally the number of people listening songs in the last 24h, and they're less than the half than what it used to.


    I personally don't think it's that people moved from Melon to other streaming services (apart from Youtube which is a fact), because we can see songs reach the 100M streams certification when they reach a similar amount of Melon streams than what they needed in the past, so my most logic explanation is that the music consumption and free time habits have changed in general. For example Tiktok, you can't listen to music while you're using Tiktok, you need to listen to it and, in many cases, you listen to the music there and you find the new music there. We can't see that in the streaming charts, maybe we can see it somewhere in places like the Circle social chart but it's more complicated to measure.

    Quote from uwuwu-98

    Like Disevidende said, there're less people using streaming services now. We can see it with circle points, but the most obvious thing is the Melon ULs, which is literally the number of people listening songs in the last 24h, and they're less than the half than what it used to.


    I personally don't think it's that people moved from Melon to other streaming services (apart from Youtube which is a fact), because we can see songs reach the 100M streams certification when they reach a similar amount of Melon streams than what they needed in the past, so my most logic explanation is that the music consumption and free time habits have changed in general. For example Tiktok, you can't listen to music while you're using Tiktok, you need to listen to it and, in many cases, you listen to the music there and you find the new music there. We can't see that in the streaming charts, maybe we can see it somewhere in places like the Circle social chart but it's more complicated to measure.

    Again, I think that is a valid point i.e. listenership on platforms included on Circle has reduced - but I am not getting the correlation between that and the drastic fall in competitiveness on Circle charts.


    Listening habits won't vary that much by the choice of platform.

    Quote from bbgc

    Fair points, But even if YT is 30%, Circle still represents 70% which is a huge sample data.

    I should probably add - less downloads it seems. It appears to me that, whilst downloads were always dropping, they were still a reliable source of points for BGs and certain GGs and even that's declined over time. Downloads are worth far more circle points then streaming the song.


    Bugs fixing up their download exploit a few years ago certainly contributed to that, as fandoms couldn't exploit circle charts for music shows. The whole Fromis 9 thing at the time if people recall.

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