K-Pop Factory Boss Lee Soo Man
Lee Soo Man’s success with SM Entertainment raised the question: can you build a lasting entertainment empire by manufacturing pop acts? That question remains unanswered 21 years after he started SM Entertainment with the goal of reproducing American entertainment in Korea.
Building a conglomerate on the backs of young pop acts requires their compliant cooperation. A spate of disputes in 2009 with SM’s top acts, including TVXQ and Super Junior’s Han Geng shows there are limits to how long demands can be made on these young performers.
SM Entertainment creator, Lee Soo-man resigned from his position as Director of Registration.
What does that mean? Nothing. Lee Soo-man will still be in SM Entertainment, but is stepping away from the business side to focus on the producing side.
This may have something to do with all the lawsuits artists (Super Junior’s Hankyung, Dong-bank-shin-ki’s Jae-joong, Yoo-shun, and Jun-su) are bringing against the company, or maybe the big man really wants to get his hands back into the heart of his company.
SM Entertainment produces Girls Generation, Super Junior, Dong-bang-shin-ki, BoA, f(x), SHINee, etc.
It isn’t so much the idea of picking musical talent on the basis of their looks so much as the putting on of mascara and eyeshadow on the boy band members. It’s also the sameness of the look of the young men and women who make up the dozen or so k-pop groups that have been winning fans all over Asia and elsewhere.
The man behind this k-pop conglomerate is a former singer himself.
Lee Soo Man (born June 18, 1952) is a South Korean entrepreneur and the founder & chairman of S.M. Entertainment Co.,Ltd. Group, including two subsidiaries (SM Academy and SM TinTin Entertainment) specializing in K-pop groups.1
Lee started his career as a singer while attending Seoul National University in 1972. He co-founded the agency in 1989 that has taken place an important position in the South Korean entertainment. SM is now the biggest record label in South Korea, due to the success of artists such as H.O.T, S.E.S., Shinhwa, Super Junior, BoA, TVXQ, Girls’ Generation, and SHINee
[edit] Early Years:1952-1972
1952, Lee was born in Seoul, South Korea. He did excellent in his school years. and entered Seoul University. He started to sing in a coffee shop in 1971.
[edit] Singer Years:1972-1980
1972, Lee debuted as a singer, but didn’t get much popularity in the first 3 years.
1976, with hits like 「Happiness」, 「One piece of Dream」, he became very famous. Next year, he received 「MBC TOP 10 Singer」 award. Beside singing, he was a successful TV host at that time too.
[edit] Studying in US, Returning to Music:1980-1989
1980, He formed the band 「i·suman·gwa·365Il」(Lee Soo Man and 365 days), becoming the first heavy metal band in the industry 。But at the same time, the new Chun Doo-hwan government started media censoring policy, and made Lee see no future in Korean entertainment. Next year, 1981, he back to pursue his young dream of top engineer, and moved to California State University, Northridge to continue on his Master degree. His major research is robotics. However, Lee saw the revolution of US entertainment at that time, the MTV generation(Michael Jackson’s Thriller for example), he felt the huge commercial potential in that. He made up his mind to “Reproduct US entertainment in Korea”.
1985, right after getting master degree, he went back to Korea for entertainment career. His returning was successful on many area such as singer, TV host, radio host. Even more, he was a part-time DJ, and was running a restaurant.
[edit] Music Producer:1989-present
1989, with 200,000,000 won for capital, he founded SM Entertainment. Since then, he produce many groups such as dancing group “hyon·jinyon”, folk group “han·DongJun”, R&B singer “Liu in Jon”, and “hyon·jinyon”, most of them are successful. 1995, SM Entertaiment became public company.
With the huge success H.O.T. in 1996 as beginning, he produced many superstar such as S.E.S.,Shinwa, Fly to the Sky, BoA, TVXQ, Super Junior, Girls’ Generation in the following 15 years. SM is now the single biggest entertainment agency in South Korea, and Lee is the most important figure behind it.
SM Entertainment refuted TVXQ’s claims and stated that since their debut up until this month (July 2009), TVXQ has earned more than 11 billion won (over $9,000,000). They stated that despite the huge losses and budget problems that SM Entertainment has had these past years, the boys were paid royally (around $1,800,000 each) and that they also received high end products as gifts (cars, music players, LCD TV’s, etc.) SM Entertainment stated that the $9,000,000 earned doesn’t include the money that TVXQ received from Endorsements / CF’s, Events, Photo Ops, Signings, Japan sales, etc. SM Entertainment also stated that there is no law stating that a contract for an artist cannot be sign for more than 7 years. They concluded saying that they will try to resolve these issues immediately.
It looks like SM Entertainment is trying to make themselves look like the victims here, which you would expect. But all this negative news isn’t good for the company, as stocks fell around 10%. Here is the news according to Forbes:
“**S.M. ENTERTAINMENT SLIDES ON NEWS OF LEGAL FEUD**
S.M. Entertainment Co fell after several media reported on Saturday that members of Tong Bang Shin Gi (TVXQ), a South Korean boy band, filed an injunction in a Seoul court to terminate their contract with the talent agency.
