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According to an exclusive report bySports Seoulon October 31 KST, the recently publicized, controversial pages of ‘HYBE LabelsIndustry Trend Reports’ are"merely the tip of the iceberg".
Insiders say that there are over 2,000 pages of these reports, containing content that could inflict a significant blow to the entertainment industry.
Furthermore, it’s believed that the relationship between chairmanBang Si Hyukof HYBE Labels and ‘K’, formerly the chief editor ofWeverse Magazine, may also be cause for public scrutiny.
Before being hired as chief editor of Weverse Magazine, ‘K’ was an editor for a prominent media outlet.
As editor, ‘K’ was known to publish influential ‘Weekly Reports’, the contents of which closely resembled the ‘HYBE Labels Industry Trend Reports’ he went on to write for Bang Si Hyuk.
The reporter had a tendency to mix “stories from sources” with “opinions from online communities”, and his articles often caused a stir in the industry.
Meanwhile, after establishing HYBE Labels, Bang Si Hyuk began seeking out influential editors and reporters whom he could “recruit to his side”.
He eventually found ‘K’ and personally hired the reporter for an executive-level position at a HYBE Labels subsidiary, Weverse Magazine.
‘K’ was offered a hefty salary to take on his chief editor position at Weverse Magazine, but one of his most important tasks was in fact to oversee the compilation of the ‘Industry Trend Reports’, documents meant to be used to debrief HYBE Labels executives on the latest developments in the K-Pop industry.
Bang Si Hyuk considered these reports of utmost importance, as he himself paid keen attention to trends and opinions among the industry’s consumers.
Furthermore, the reports were intended to serve as guides for many of HYBE’s executives who came from backgrounds in the gaming industry, which operates on different principles than the K-Pop industry.
Even for executives at competing entertainment agencies, ‘K’s ‘Industry Trend Reports’ contain highly “biased” content which “explicitly reveals the author’s intentions to belittle competing artist”.
One of the first executive-level HYBE Labels employees to call to attention the problematic nature of these reports wasMin Hee Jin, former CEO ofADOR, who internally forwarded a complaint email to the main branch executives on April 16 of this year.
In the email, Min Hee Jin wrote,
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