The owners of various regional music streaming services that operate in Asian markets have teamed up to launch a new K-pop chart which, they say, should “broaden” the genre’s “global horizons”.
The new chart is a joint venture between South Korea’s Kakao Entertainment, China’s Tencent Music Entertainment and Japan’s LINE MUSIC, which first announced they were partnering on the initiative late last year.
Kakao operates the streaming service Melon within Korea. Tencent runs three streaming services in China - QQ Music, Kugou Music and Kuwo Music - and a fourth service, JOOX, in other Asian markets. LINE MUSIC is owned by LY Corporation and is integrated with Japanese messaging app LINE.
Melon announced yesterday that the new chart will launch next month under the brand Global-K Chart, even though it’s not really all that global. However, it will pull in genre relevant data from all the participating streaming services in all the markets where they operate.
When first announcing the JV last year, the streaming companies said the chart would “calculate rankings based on comprehensive metrics” pulling in user “engagement and streaming activity across all participating platforms”.
That suggests the chart may factor in more than just number of plays, with the Asian streaming services generally offering more social and community functionality than the global platforms.
Quite how the chart will work remains to be seen, but it could provide a template for other multiterritory genre-specific rankings beyond the classic music charts. Of course, once different sources of data start to be mashed together to compile a chart, the often unclear methodology can skew where artists or tracks get ranked. But still, it’s an interesting project.
A Melon spokesperson said this week that the new chart should “become a global standard that accurately reflects K-pop trends”, adding that the streaming service plans to “hold various events before and after the launch and engage with fans around the world”.
When confirming LINE MUSIC’s involvement last year, its CEO Jun Masuda said, “K-pop is in high demand in Japan and being able to reflect every activity of Japanese followers on a global chart will be a meaningful initiative”.