Girl group Le Sserafim is writing a "miracle of the small agency," but the polarization between major and small agencies in the K-pop market is deepening. Critics say that with up to around 10 billion won — the cost of producing a mid-budget film — required to debut a single group, small agencies lacking capital are being driven into a situation where survival, let alone debuting rookies, is difficult.
According to industry sources on the 4th, as production cost burdens mount, small entertainment agencies are indefinitely postponing artist comebacks and rookie debuts. This stems from the growing production cost burden, with anywhere from several billion to 10 billion won spent to debut a single group. Recently, as competition has intensified — involving overseas composers, high-quality music videos, global marketing, and performances designed with world tours in mind — the production cost of a single album has in many cases reached around tens of billions of won. One industry official said, "In the current K-pop market, the odds of a small agency succeeding are extremely slim," adding, "It's partly because the industry has grown rapidly and indiscriminate intellectual property (IP) has flooded in, but essentially it's due to the overwhelming difference in scale with major agencies." He also said, "In the case of major agencies, they invest more than 10 billion won just on artist development and pre-launch marketing for a rookie group, and then pour in similar amounts with each album release." He added, "On top of that, they have solid 'agency fandoms' passed down from senior artists, collaborations with high-profile label artists, and opportunities for exposure on major stages — infrastructure that small and new companies can't even access — so the phenomenon of the poor getting poorer and the rich getting richer is inevitable."
Indeed, in the increasingly competitive K-pop market, the odds of success have proven so slim as to be likened to "a camel passing through the eye of a needle." According to a comprehensive study by Kim Jung-sup, professor of cultural industry and arts at Sungshin Women's University (chairman of the Global K-Culture Economy Forum), of 1,182 idol groups active over the 30 years from H.O.T.'s 1996 debut through 2025, only about half of domestic idol groups continued activities for more than three years. About 45% disbanded or effectively disappeared from the market within three years.
Teams that achieved "million-seller" status accounted for just 1.6% of the total. In particular, only eight groups (0.68%) surpassed 10 million in cumulative album sales: BTS, Seventeen, Stray Kids, EXO, Twice, NCT, Tomorrow X Together (TXT), and Enhypen. All were produced by major agencies such as Hybe, SM Entertainment, and JYP Entertainment. As K-pop has established itself as a mainstream force in the global music market, the industry has expanded in scale, but the polarization between major and small agencies is steadily deepening.
Amid this reality, success stories from small agencies are becoming increasingly rare. Girl group Le Sserafim, under The Muse Entertainment, wrote a miracle this year — its third since debut — when "Love Attack" climbed back up to top the music charts. But this was a case of a song released two years earlier belatedly gaining attention. In the past, Fifty Fifty's "Cupid" was also called a success myth for a small agency, but its growth was cut short amid disputes over exclusive contracts and so-called "tampering" controversies. One industry official noted, "Small agencies are seeking survival through strategies such as organic viral marketing targeting niche markets or gaining a foothold in overseas markets before bringing that momentum back home," adding, "But the biggest dilemma is that it is realistically very difficult to establish such miraculous success stories as a stable system or to reproduce them repeatedly."
The government is also stepping up efforts to foster small agencies. The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Korea Creative Content Agency (KOCCA) for the first time this year launched a program to support small agencies' overseas expansion, selecting 10 teams including Le Sserafim. The program supports overseas showcases, local marketing, and business matching, and there are plans to more than double the support scale next year. KOCCA supports small entertainment agencies through seven programs, including support for small agencies' global leap (2.9 billion won), development of new-technology convergence content (2.85 billion won), support for holding pop music concerts in regional areas (2.33 billion won), and support for holding in-person pop music concerts (2.17 billion won).
