{"id":237693,"date":"2025-08-07T11:05:58","date_gmt":"2025-08-07T10:05:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/?p=237693"},"modified":"2025-08-07T11:05:58","modified_gmt":"2025-08-07T10:05:58","slug":"after-katseye-success-hybe-geffen-launches-talent-search-for-second-girl-group-starting-in-japan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/after-katseye-success-hybe-geffen-launches-talent-search-for-second-girl-group-starting-in-japan\/","title":{"rendered":"After KATSEYE success, HYBE-Geffen launches talent search for second girl group \u2013 starting in Japan"},"content":{"rendered":"

Banking on the recent commercial success of KATSYE, HYBE and Universal Music Group\u2018s Geffen Records are launching a new talent search for their second global girl group.<\/p>\n

The collaboration, which produced<\/a> the six-member global act through The Debut: Dream Academy<\/i> in 2023, is now expanding operations with World Scout : The Final Piece<\/a>, <\/i>with Japanese auditions already underway and exclusively streaming on Japanese platform ABEMA<\/b><\/a>.<\/p>\n

KATSEYE<\/b>‘s performance metrics suggest the strength of HYBE<\/b> and Geffen<\/b>\u2019s partnership. The group’s EP Beautiful Chaos<\/i> appeared on both\u00a0Billboard<\/i> and UK Official charts while their 13-city North American tour sold out completely.<\/p>\n

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The group\u2019s singles\u00a0Gnarly\u00a0<\/i>and\u00a0Gabriela\u00a0<\/i>also saw multi-week runs on the\u00a0Billboard<\/i>\u00a0Hot 100.<\/p>\n

KATSEYE were among the performers during the recent Lollapalooza<\/b> in Chicago. In an interview<\/a> with\u00a0The Korea Times\u00a0<\/i>on Saturday, KATSEYE\u2019s Manon<\/b> said: \u201cIt\u2019s our first festival ever\u2026 We\u2019ve worked so hard for it, and now we\u2019re at a point where we\u2019re just ready to take over the stage and let Chicago know who we are.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to HYBE\u2019s latest earnings report<\/a>, just\u00a01%<\/b>\u00a0of the group\u2019s\u00a0Spotify<\/b>\u00a0listeners are based in Korea. Over\u00a020%<\/b>\u00a0are in the United States,\u00a017%<\/b>\u00a0in Europe, and\u00a012%<\/b>\u00a0in the Philippines. The data supports HYBE\u2019s strategy of developing acts for international markets rather than exporting Korean-developed groups.<\/p>\n

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Back in March, HYBE CEO Jason Jaesang Lee<\/b> said<\/a>: \u201cThe group has received so much attention and affection from listeners and music critics worldwide. The success of KATSEYE demonstrate[s] that the K-pop system can work in the U.S.\u201d<\/p>\n

The first round of auditions for the new girl group has kicked off in Japan.<\/p>\n

The Japan-based auditions target women and \u201cnon-binary\u201d individuals aged 15 to 24 through nationwide auditions running from August 6 through September 22. Selected candidates will undergo training in Japan from October through December, followed by a Los Angeles-based training ahead of a US debut in 2026.<\/p>\n

The selection process involves document review, three rounds of Tokyo-based screenings, and final judging in the US.<\/p>\n

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According to the upcoming show\u2019s website<\/a>: \u201cA top-tier scouting team with a proven track record of discovering global stars such as BTS<\/b> will come to Japan to hold a nationwide, large-scale audition.\u201d<\/p>\n

The website for the HYBE and Geffen partnership stated that only one person will be selected from the Japan leg of auditions.<\/p>\n

The website said: \u201cA scouting project that is attracting attention from all over the world has been launched to find that one person who will inspire the world.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The selection process involves document review, three rounds of Tokyo-based screenings, and final judging in the US. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":237694,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[104593,128630,129816,132104,269],"class_list":["post-237693","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-geffen","tag-geffen-records","tag-hybe","tag-katseye","tag-universal-music-group"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237693","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/38"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=237693"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237693\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/237694"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=237693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=237693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=237693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}