The entertainment division of South Korean tech giant Kakao has partnered with China and Japan\u2019s largest audio streaming providers to launch a new \u2018K-pop Artist Chart.\u2019<\/p>\n
Kakao Entertainment<\/strong> signed separate memoranda of understanding with China\u2019s Tencent Music Entertainment<\/strong> and Japan\u2019s Line Music<\/strong> to integrate K-pop streaming data into a new chart that will be handled by Melon<\/strong>, Kakao\u2019s music streaming service in the South Korean market.<\/p>\n The chart is expected to debut on Melon in the first half of this year and will \u201ccalculate rankings based on comprehensive metrics of music enthusiasts\u2019 engagement and streaming activity across all participating platforms,\u201d Kakao said.<\/p>\n Tencent is China\u2019s largest provider of music streaming services, operating the QQ Music<\/strong>, Kugou<\/strong> and Kuwo<\/strong> platforms, as well as JOOX<\/strong>, a music streaming app that operates in Asian markets including Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand.<\/p>\n Line Music is Japan\u2019s most popular listening app, and is integrated with the Line Messenger<\/strong> app that is used by a large majority of Japanese residents.<\/p>\n Kakao\u2019s Melon was South Korea\u2019s most popular music streaming platform until it was unseated in recent years by YouTube<\/strong>. It remains among the most popular, and is credited with having helped propel K-pop to popularity. Its annual Melon Music Awards<\/strong> celebrate the most popular K-pop artists.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is very meaningful to introduce a global-standard chart for K-pop amid its ongoing boom, created by three companies spearheading the Asian music industry,\u201d Kakao Entertainment co-CEO Joseph Chang<\/strong> said.<\/p>\n \u201cThe \u2018K-pop Artist Chart\u2019 will add new value to the industry, artists, and music enthusiasts by delivering a reliable standard. Going forward, Kakao Entertainment will continue to contribute to the growth of the K-pop ecosystem and the elevation of its global influence.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe \u2018K-pop Artist Chart\u2019 will add new value to the industry, artists, and music enthusiasts by delivering a reliable standard.”<\/p>\n Joseph Chang, Kakao Entertainment<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Line Music CEO Jun Masuda<\/strong> noted that K-pop \u201cis in high demand\u201d in Japan.<\/p>\n \u201cBeing able to reflect every activity of Japanese followers on a global chart will be a meaningful initiative. Alongside such a global move by K-pop, Line Music will also continue striving to expand the ecosystem for J-pop and Japanese artists as a music platform.\u201d<\/p>\n The new K-pop chart comes a few months after Luminate<\/strong>, the data company that powers the Billboard<\/em> charts, announced it had struck a deal<\/a> with Tencent Music to incorporate Chinese listening data for the first time in its Global charts.<\/p>\n Melon\u2019s data has been part of the Billboard<\/em> charts since 2023.<\/p>\n Besides owning Melon, Kakao Entertainment is a major shareholder in SM Entertainment<\/strong>, the K-pop agency behind such acts as Super Junior<\/strong> and aespa<\/strong>. Kakao won a bidding war against entertainment giant HYBE<\/strong> for control of the company in 2023.<\/p>\n That bidding war triggered a criminal investigation into potential violations of securities laws, leading to the arrest and indictment of several Kakao executives, including its founder and Chairman, Kim Beom-su<\/strong>. A Seoul court acquitted<\/a> Kim and his co-defendants last October.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The new chart is expected to debut in the first half of this year on Kakao’s Melon music streaming service<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":46,"featured_media":237475,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[134934,132255,128990,4565],"class_list":["post-248592","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-k-pop-artist-chart","tag-kakao-entertainment","tag-line-music","tag-tencent-music-entertainment"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248592","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\/46"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=248592"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248592\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":248685,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248592\/revisions\/248685"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/237475"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=248592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=248592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=248592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}