HYBE CEO believes musicians should be “making a lot more money”

Bang Si-hyuk, who is the CEO of BTS‘ label HYBE, has discussed the challenges faced by the music industry today.

When asked what he thought was the biggest challenge faced by the music industry in a recent interview with TIME Magazine, Bang first admitted that “this isn’t an easy question for [him] to answer”, as HYBE has a “unique structure” of operations. He noted that this causes it to “[deal] with issues that are quite different from those the global music industry is dealing with”.

However, the HYBE head also shared that he feels that musicians should be compensated more for their artistic output. “I personally think the music industry is losing quite a lot in the value chain,” he said. “I feel the music industry should be making a lot more money and their value as a service should be recognised more.”

Bang then noted that it feels like the music industry is seeing an upturn in income as a result of the ever-growing streaming market. “To my knowledge the global music industry is happy about the expansion of the streaming market and recording music businesses were able to create additional income,” he shared.

Despite that, he also admitted that “it doesn’t seem that easy” to increase earnings that are allocated to artists. “When you consider how much music played a role in [streaming plaforms’] success, the amount paid to music rights holders is comparatively minuscule,” he pointed out.

“It’s such a small amount that you’d faint if you knew. So, can all of these issues be negotiated and solved overnight? I’m quite skeptical about that.”

In the same interview, Bang also addressed the concerns of BTS fans surrounding the company’s pursuit of NFT ventures.  “All I’d like to say to fans is: As of now, we haven’t announced anything,” he clarified. “We haven’t discussed what kind of product we would service or what type of product we would make, although I fully understand the concern.”