Universal Music Group (UMG) has announced it will team up with K-pop record label Big Hit Entertainment for a US TV talent show to discover the genre’s next superstar boyband.
South Korea-based Big Hit is home to BTS, one of the world’s most popular musical acts.
The label will join UMG’s Geffen Records to “assemble and debut” a K-pop boy group in the US.
The band will release music under a new label, called JV, which will operate from Los Angeles.
Members of the group will be selected through a “global audition program,” UMG said, which is scheduled to air next year and launch with a “major US media partner”.
The group will “work based on the K-pop system,” the labels said, describing it as a “full production that combines music, performance, fashion, music video and communications with fans”.
Big Hit will use its “global expertise” to “lead the discovery, training and development of new artists, fan content production processes and management of fan communications,” the label said.
And Geffen will work closely with the chosen US media partner to produce the audition programme, UMG said, adding the label will leverage its “extensive industry network and partners to oversee the music production, marketing and global distribution operations”.
Sir Lucian Grainge, chairman & CEO of UMG, said the venture “will further accelerate K-pop as a global cultural phenomenon”.
Bang Si-Hyuk, chairman and CEO of Big Hit Entertainment, said the collaboration between the two entertainment giants “will rewrite the global music history”.
In the same announcement it was revealed select UMG artists will join “direct to fan” communications through Big Hit’s Weverse platform, which the labels said allows fans to see and hear new content.
Earlier this month UMG said it would invest in live-streaming service VenewLive, which was set up by Big Hit Entertainment last year.
