#I just... am very busy with trcng and now I have to get back to work and studying and just...

[bapwoo]

So I was tagged by @be-the-piano and since I am not that busy as I was I am going to do the tag (I know that around time of New Years I was tagged in another like 6 posts but I was busy studying for test which I still failed and now I have no energy to search for them... but I wat to thank you and I appreciate that you tagged me <3 @kpopruinedmywholelifeu and @creepersdongsaeng bc I know it was you but I just... have no energy, so I want to apologize at least like this)

Thank you for tagging me hun <3 Now to this tag lol

Rules: Answer the 11 questions, create 11 questions on your own and tag 11 people to answer them.

1. What animal do you (want to) have?

I have no animal rn, but I just LOVE CATS. My grandma has one- my lil baby (and another bunch of stray cats is wandering on and around her garden and we are giving them food, but her own cat, who also owns the garden and territory around it isn’t so happy abt it, especially there are some cats she really hates/is scared of). But probably will never have one bc I am allergic to them. But if I see cat somewhere or if you have cat home, you bet that I am going to pet it/visit you at home.

2. Sea or mountains?

Damn... both (you think it doesn’t exist? Go to Corsica. I was there, there was both and it was the best lol.

3. Who is your favourite person (fictional or not)?

Hmmmm... my fave person. It is sth like fictional character lol. Don’t laugh at me now okay? But I just love Chandler from freinds because he is like... male version of me lol.

4. Last song you listened to?

I am just listening to B.A.P’s Honeymoon (bless)

5. What is your favourite season?

I... think I already had sth like this in some tags and wrote 20 rows long essay what I love about every season, bc I love them all lol. But... I think that spring?

6. Playing sports/watching sports?

BOTH. I love playing sports (mostly beach volleyball or tennis, ocassionaly ice skating) and I love watching sports (do you need ice hockey buddy? ask me and we can go together to pub watching ice hockey; You love darts? I am in. Do you like to cry over Yuzuru’s ice skating or others’ figure skaters’ skills? You bet I will cry with you lol. You need someone to watch tennis match? You can’t find better pro than me who can tell you top 100 players in women’s and men’s ranking lol. You need rugby buddy? HELL YES!!! Just don’t drag me to football... that is thing I dislike to the maximum level lol).

7. Dragons?

I like them but I do not seek them haha.

8. Favourite book.

hmmmm... I dunno. But I can tell you the least favourite and it is going to be book about International Trade (:

9. The class you hate(d) most.

CHEMISTRY

10. Is there any language you would like to learn?

Well... I am trying to learn Japanese now (I am still very bad bc I had like... 30 lessons spread to whole year so), I would like to learn Korean or learn Italian well (I had courses but I already forgot everything and I fucking love that language)

11. What is your favourite word and why?

I will go and say forget-me-not. It is because in our language it has the word “forget” too and I just found it amazing when I saw the translation of it. Plus it sounds cute to me in some way?

I won’t tag anyone, because it is late and I am too drained to think about the questions lol.

[bapwoo]

Get ready for some long-ass analysis about TS

As I mentioned yesterday, it still bugs me the whole situation of TS. I can’t stop thinking about why TS ended up in such shit when their artists were quite successful...

First of all, I do not know what kind of system for doing business is set in South Korea (like initial deposit to the company, types of companies and what are the mandatory actions you need to do with it, etc.), so I will use knowledge of the system in my country.

I tried to dig up some information about the structure of the company. The only thing I found was, that it is private company (YG or SM are public ones aka they offer their stock to public), but this won’t help me much. Anyway, I will try to somehow analyze the business of the company.

So, when setting up the company it is needed to make initial deposit, then calculate costs for building (purchase or lease – most of the companies lease the place for their offices and so on), for staff (future managers, stylists, makeup artists, artists, administration, trainees, dancers), for energy costs, for cars, for equipment, for promotions (since it is a company which works in entertainment industry, I guess that budget for promotions must be quite high). Except promotions we can say that those costs are fixed (company pays fixed amount of money for some time) and promotions and other costs (connected with making MV and albums etc.) are costs which vary from TV to TV, from composer to composer etc.; this all means that the beginning of the business is always hard, and unless you have few millions to spare on your bank account, you will need to loan money and that means that you have to pay it back with some interest rate. Thus, it means another cost for the company.

Now, when calculation is finished, salaries for staff set, all loans etc. are signed, and we put the business into action, it is time to get money back aka debut groups and use the profit from them to pay off the debts. TS was formed in 2008 and same year debuted Untouchable. Untouchable was quite popular as hiphop group (duo) and definitely made some profit for TS or at least made such profit that TS would still work. Next year TS debuted Secret, and we all know that Secret got really popular. Maybe their debut was not that successful, but following comebacks made them quite popular and they managed to win a lot of awards. With Secret debuting, it also meant more costs (salary to their manager, maybe for more stylists and makeup artists, salary for the members, more costs connected with album releases, promotions, etc.). Here it comes the tricky thing – management. I don’t know how much company can influence the price of albums, goods and if they can, somehow, negotiate the costs for the promotions, etc., but good businessman is able to negotiate price which is a compromise to both sides. What is important for starting business is, to not get into the loss which is bigger than their fixed costs (until the company is still able to pay its fixed costs it can still work and get profits in the future). What I want to say is, that in the beginning TS probably was operating with loss, but after the Secret’s success, I think that sooner or later they must have got to the profit, and I think that the time when they finally got the profit was the time when they decided to debut B.A.P.

B.A.P got public attention from the very beginning. It was completely new, different and powerful group. What kinda destroyed the powerful entrée was debut of other great groups that year (NU’EST, BTOB, VIXX, but mostly it was EXO). Despite SM debuting their new boy group, B.A.P did not get overshadowed (they won few rookie awards). All in all, TS had another very talented group with huge future potential (and also group which could get them a lot of money). Year or so after the debut, they sent B.A.P on world tour (more costs but also more profits), which was quite a success, so then TS practically sent B.A.P on world tour every year.  I guess that with B.A.P’s success (but maybe also with Secret – I got into kpop and B.A.P in 2015, so I do not know what TS was doing before) TS tasted the taste of money… and they got greedy.

But they got greedy and not thinking about future at all. From what I saw through the years, I have the feeling that the management always thought about immediate profit, thought about short period in business and not the long period of time. In my opinion, in such industry, it is important to think of the future too. Instant profit is important, because it finances your next projects, but you have to think about those projects. You have to think about the audience, the impact of the things you are doing right now, and that is what TS probably fucked up. They wanted money, money, money, and did not think about the impact of not paying their artists, never letting them rest, etc. I think they just thought that this won’t be problem. They did not think that if something like lawsuit or any leakage of their shady behavior happens, that the credibility of the company would plummet…

… and that is what happened. 2014 TS was still promoting Secret and Secret was still popular, B.A.P reached the peak in their career, won their first music show. Everything went well for TS, but… TS’s approach probably did not change and it still did not pay to their staff…

TS scheduled debut of new girl group Sonamoo on December. But before their debut, B.A.P filled lawsuit against TS and this is where things went downfall. Sonamoo’s debut and following comeback were successful. Now, this is where I lack a bit, so I am sorry for all Sonamoo stans. But even though that Sonamoo’s debut and comeback with Cushion single was successful, I am not sure that TS used this to promote them more (also if I remember well some B.A.P fans were not happy about Sonamoo’s comeback, so I think that it also did not help them) which is sad, because they would be quite successful – they have visuals, vocals, rap, dance, charisma.

Now I will move to the more recent events – B.A.P photobook. This makestar project was legendary and it surpassed its funding goal by 750%!!!!!! (from USD 31,300 to USD 235,682.38). I assume that part of the profit was taken by makestar, but still. TS got a lot of money in their hands. Sonamoo’s makestar project was also successful and surpassed funding goal by 500% (twice).

Of course that TS decided to debut new boy band. They probably knew that B.A.P’s contracts expire soon and that they probably won’t renew them, so they needed new boy group which would earn them profit. BUT… the question is if it wasn’t too early? Wouldn’t have been better to use money from the projects to finish Sonamoo’s project and promote B.A.P more? In 2017 TS sent B.A.P on another tour, after only two weeks of Wake Me Up promotions. That comeback was very successful and I found it foolish that TS decided to send them on tour and Japan instead of fully promote the comeback and get the most out of it. What I found as a huge flop (not musically... I loved everything on it) was Hands Up comeback. I know that B.A.P said that the new album would be released soon and TS probably panicked when they found out that they have almost no time. But wiser decision would be to put it off and make full promotions for the album. Wait until Daehyun’s musical is over. TS knew that B.A.P won’t leave until the end of 2018, but they literally boycotted them and I think it was not right decision. B.A.P got more attention with Rose album and with good promotions they could earn more than TRCNG. Same with Sonamoo. Makestar project was successful and they could invest more time into promoting them than trying to debut new group. They should have settle things in their company before the debut.

I think that Hands Up was also rushed because TRCNG comeback was planned on 2nd January and new Sonamoo comeback was planned just few weeks after TRCNG. I also think that it was not wise to rush TRCNG to Japan only two months after their debut. Focusing on domestic market is for debuting groups more important, and by sending TRCNG to Japan, TS must pay another costs, I dare to say, unnecessarily.

TS not promoting Daehuyn’s musicals, Himchan’s play Euijin’s success in UNIT was another mistake by them, but now we are talking about recent problems, and if TS struggled with debts and internal problems before, I guess that it was hard to do anything about it now. Still, I think that it would not be such pain to make short post about their success and hype them up a bit.

The worst possible thing happened last year, when CEO Kim Taesong died. Since then the activities of the company are even more blurry than before. It was never mentioned how he died (and I have some thoughts on it but I will keep it to myself, because this is rather sensitive topic). But what bothers me more than CEO’s death is, that after that we got practically no information about TS. Who leads it? Is it still in some negotiations? Does TS even exist anymore? We know nothing about it and it really bugs me. By this time things should have been settled somehow; however, TS is still shady as it was for a long time.

Anyway, I babbled a lot and I would like to finish this trail of thoughts. I think that the main problem lied (and lies) in bad management and lust for instant profit, instead of thinking into the future. All their artists have huge potential, but TS is not able to get the attention. Right now, it is mostly because of the lack of sources. I always think that they could get some sort of loan, the thing is that they may lost credibility and banks simply do not want to lend him more money.  

Is there some way how to get out of this shit they got themselves into? This actually has been bothering my mind for some time already. I wonder if they can do something about it. I have no idea how bad their situation is. I mentioned the loans. If they lost credibility, they should try to somehow get it back; for example, by sharing with public more information about the company. The only information we got were rumors about this or that, and it only destroys the image of the company. If they need money, they should create some kind of rational plan of how they get money for paying off the debts, so they can persuade banks to give them money (but there may be a problem – I read somewhere that CEO was probably using money for gambling, but I think it was one of many rumors, but even though it was only rumor this could also affect decision-making of the banks – as a bank I would not lend money to the company that would use it for some personal matters and not for the business). Nevertheless, if the situation of the company is not too serious, they can still do something about it, but I guess that it would need to completely change the attitude, which is probably the hardest part (considering also the culture).

PS: I found out that TS set up their subsidiary in Japan in 2011. I am not sure if it was great idea. I have no idea how Japanese promotions work there, but maybe less expensive would be to make a deal with some intermediary. But yeah… I dunno how much would they pay for them. Or at least they could establish their own subsidiary after few years and not this early (I think that the profits could not reach such huge numbers back then).