When will Melon understand their chart was never the reason behind their decreasing userbase?

  • At this point I'm starting to think they will launch a new chart every year thinking in how to retain subscriptions


    And every year will fail because that's not why Melon is losing them


    What irks me is how can be them so unaware of their own customers music habits, doesn't Melon have any Data Science team to back them up? smh

  • what would you do to change things up OP if you could?

    Keep a daily chart alive, but remove the top 100 playlist entirely and replace it for a curated user-specific recommendation playlist system like Spotify with a higher focus on new releases. It just arguably works better.


    If they don't want to make such a bold move, change the way the top 100 playlist is organized. Instead on sorting by the song with most ULs, sort them for how much a song is trending based on reprodutions of new users, older songs tends to keep consistent ULs but are less likely to be listened on repeat. Insert big releases automatically on the first 1-20 positions on that playlist, this will give them visibility


    This playlist doesn't need to have 100 songs, it can have as much songs as necessary, less than 100, more than 100, an unfixed number. Whatever works better after some testing

  • Maybe not the main reason. But it's definitely one of the reasons. Even HYLT had more ULs than ssak3 when they were only a month apart. A group like ssak3 can easily get IU level ULs.


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  • I don't really follow the Melon charts (considering it's all in Korea) so pls explain why what they are doing is wrong.

    Melon doesn't understand they are in a red market. There is absolutely nothing on Melon that any other service can't offer for cheaper prices. Red market is extremely price-sensitive, that's the reason behind the sudden increase in popularity of both Genie and Flo



    Their library is exactly the same as any service as well, this is not Netflix vs HBO Max vs Disney Plus, each one with their own catalog and you need to subscribe both if you want to watch everything. With streaming music services only one subscription is enough, hence if Flo and Genie are growing it means someone is losing subscriptions



    So instead to differentiate themselves right now Melon is doing whatever they can to STAY THE SAME. If this was a retail market instead of offer music streaming, then I would understand Melon would have a fairly big advantage over other platforms, because they are older and have a bigger infrastructure


    But they aren't. They are an IT company, they don't sell with goodies nor commodities, they sells music other people creates, their size and brand matters very few if their competition can offer exactly the same product

  • While i agree i doubt it will happen anytime soon, top 100 chart listening (and rankings in general) is too ingrained in the korean public. Yoo Jaesuk for example is a famous self proclaimed top10 only listener..


    Even the charts that try to go the more curated playlists etc (flo), end up looking very similar in charting to melon, because people will still go to the top chart or a playlist reflecting it and listen to it. Now this happens all over they world, just to a much higher degree in sokor than most other places.

    Maybe not the main reason. But it's definitely one of the reasons. Even HYLT had more ULs than ssak3 when they were only a month apart. A group like ssak3 can easily get IU level ULs.


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    Thats more due to the fact that the song was released on a saturday tho, the absolute worst day possible for high UL, yet they still got 800k+. Had they released on a weekday they would easily have gotten 1m+. IU's give you my heart was also a saturday release and it had 706k UL just months earlier.

  • While i agree i doubt it will happen anytime soon, top 100 chart listening (and rankings in general) is too ingrained in the korean public. Yoo Jaesuk for example is a famous self proclaimed top10 only listener..


    Even the charts that try to go the more curated playlists etc (flo), end up looking very similar in charting to melon, because people will still go to the top chart or a playlist reflecting it and listen to it. Now this happens all over they world, just to a much higher degree in sokor than most other places.

    Thats more due to the fact that the song was released on a saturday tho, the absolute worst day possible for high UL, yet they still got 800k+. Had they released on a weekday they would easily have gotten 1m+. IU's give you my heart was also a saturday release and it had 706k UL just months earlier.

    Ok saturday does get less uls. But after the chart reform there has never been a no.1 song with 1M uls or even 900k at any time. Why is that?

  • Melon doesn't even know what they are doing anymore, at this point it's the Unique Listeners Chart, what's worst is that some people actually think this is good or makes some kind of justice, on what world did streams stopped mattering? How is a chart based solely on Unique Listeners good for the diversity of the music industry? How are fans streaming their favs or downloading their songs looked down upon and automatically playing the chart for the 100th time because you are too lazy to search for new music making the same songs add points fair? Melon is pretty much killing K-Pop for the GP on Korea with these reforms. No wonder they have been declining for some time, it happens when you mistreat the user (apart from mistreating the artists) Thank god other charts exist

  • Keep a daily chart alive, but remove the top 100 playlist entirely and replace it for a curated user-specific recommendation playlist system like Spotify with a higher focus on new releases. It just arguably works better.


    If they don't want to make such a bold move, change the way the top 100 playlist is organized. Instead on sorting by the song with most ULs, sort them for how much a song is trending based on reprodutions of new users, older songs tends to keep consistent ULs but are less likely to be listened on repeat. Insert big releases automatically on the first 1-20 positions on that playlist, this will give them visibility


    This playlist doesn't need to have 100 songs, it can have as much songs as necessary, less than 100, more than 100, an unfixed number. Whatever works better after some testing

    that's actually very good idea

  • If they don't want to make such a bold move, change the way the top 100 playlist is organized. Instead on sorting by the song with most ULs, sort them for how much a song is trending based on reprodutions of new users, older songs tends to keep consistent ULs but are less likely to be listened on repeat.

    ist't this what they are doing now with the 50/50 24H uls/hourly uls lol ?:/ new releases will obviously have more hourly uls initially than old songs so if you debut at 50k you'll basically chart like you have 100k isn't it like this? :/:/

    Edited once, last by oddol ().

  • I think this change is an attempt to retain or win back the mass streaming fandoms, I dont think it will make much change to GP's trends. Theyre paying customers and even if they dont make much impact on the upper echelons of UL-based charts, they add up.

  • Melon doesn't even know what they are doing anymore, at this point it's the Unique Listeners Chart, what's worst is that some people actually think this is good or makes some kind of justice, on what world did streams stopped mattering? How is a chart based solely on Unique Listeners good for the diversity of the music industry? How are fans streaming their favs or downloading their songs looked down upon and automatically playing the chart for the 100th time because you are too lazy to search for new music making the same songs add points fair? Melon is pretty much killing K-Pop for the GP on Korea with these reforms. No wonder they have been declining for some time, it happens when you mistreat the user (apart from mistreating the artists) Thank god other charts exist

    kpop fans don't seem to have a problem with streaming in spotify and youtube so why is melon singled out? (i mean by kpop fans who think last year's update was a good thing)

  • At this point I'm starting to think they will launch a new chart every year thinking in how to retain subscriptions


    And every year will fail because that's not why Melon is losing them


    What irks me is how can be them so unaware of their own customers music habits, doesn't Melon have any Data Science team to back them up? smh

    :whatb: But I learnt recently here that Melon actually experienced an increase in subscribers as recent as end of last year? :/

    'No more shall man have wings to bear him to paradise. Henceforth, he shall walk.'


    SWJ1P.gif

  • Ok saturday does get less uls. But after the chart reform there has never been a no.1 song with 1M uls or even 900k at any time. Why is that?

    Lots of factors.

    Saturated market, covid situation and 24h chart actually had some effect in that not everyone listens to only top to bottom on the chart, which spreads out listeners more than before. Loss of market share yes, but imo not as big as many say/think. And i think most of the user loss have been to youtube, not to the other domestic services.


    No, there havent been any first 24h 1m+ UL post-reform, but part of that is because its now basically impossible to chart #1 in the first hour on the chart and thus gain even more uls rapidly from people who dont seek out artists/new songs. Its a matter of discoverabilty really. The only 800k+ releases after reform has been IU and Yoo jaesuk projects which is telling.


    I think we will see a few songs over 1m ul again with this change, even if it will be few and far between, i doubt we will see any 1,2m+ in the near future tho.

  • Melon doesn't even know what they are doing anymore, at this point it's the Unique Listeners Chart, what's worst is that some people actually think this is good or makes some kind of justice, on what world did streams stopped mattering? How is a chart based solely on Unique Listeners good for the diversity of the music industry? How are fans streaming their favs or downloading their songs looked down upon and automatically playing the chart for the 100th time because you are too lazy to search for new music making the same songs add points fair? Melon is pretty much killing K-Pop for the GP on Korea with these reforms. No wonder they have been declining for some time, it happens when you mistreat the user (apart from mistreating the artists) Thank god other charts exist

    Because having a chart based on unfiltered streaming is dumb. It supposed to reflect whats popular and what the public listens to, not what 1000 obnoxious fans masstream on repeat every five minutes.


    All big charts does this even if not it the same way, spotify afaik base their chart on max 10 streams from a user/day, which is bascially the same only with a factor of 10.

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