So I've been thinking about this quite awhile, and especially with the recent raging Melon Music Awards and MAMA 2016, and the building hype for GDA, it's about time I pen something down (after studying the 3 major award ceremony past wins too).

The big 3 has always been SM, YG and JYP, and they also happen to have always in that particular standing - by their 2015 revenue, SM is more than 1.5 times that of YG, and YG is subsequently 4 times that of JYP. However, it is questionable as to whether this will continue especially given the many upcoming crisis.

Crisis 1. army

It is no secret that boy groups tend to do much better (if you look through past daesangs, majority of that is won by boy groups with the minor exception of SNSD, 2NE1 and once upon a time, WG). And the army-age (30 years old international age) has came for the 2nd gen idols (dbsk, suju, big bang, 2pm etc). Both members of TVXQ have enlisted, and currently half of Super Junior (or more accurately, the main dancers) is in the army. Big Bang has started to enlist one by one, and soon will 2PM SHINee and EXO in the next few years. (Random fact, but SHINee members roughly fall around the age range of EXO despite being 4 years senior in the industry, so they'd actually be gone together once it starts - biggest reason why SM is trying to push NCT so hard if you ask me)

Once the members start to enlist, group activity was most probably be on hiatus unless you're a huge group like Super Junior (who continued promotions as a group in the earlier stage when the eldest members enlisted, they only held off group promotions in the 2 years their leader enlisted; however they can't do this now because the 85/86 line makes up the majority of SJ's performance, hence the group activity is on hiatus and the members are active doing solo activities - KRY promotions stopped since Ryeowook has too enlisted recently lol). Sub units and solo are unlikely to do as well as the group can (big bang may be an exception lol I mean GD & Taeyang have won Daesangs as soloist).

Crisis 2. strong competition from beyond

As many know, BTS has actually won 2 daesangs this year (Album daesang on MMA and Artist daesang on MAMA). Bighit actually generated more revenue than JYP did last year, even though many JYP artists made a comeback, but BTS single-grouply outsold this big3 company with HYYH. And a few years back, Infinite won (against EXO and SHINee) the Best Male Group on MAMA 2013. Beast was Artist of the year on MMA twice before. Girl groups from smaller labels have also been increasingly gaining attention, eg Gfriend, Girls Day, MAMAMOO, APINK and AOA. And following IOI's success, the next few years you'll probably see a ton of new girl groups (DIA and Gugudan for instance) popping up marketed as "ex IOI/producer 101 member debuted" to ride on the hype.

Big3 is still the biggest, but competition is increasingly stronger. SM actually bought Infinite's company (woolim) over in the form of a merger with one of their spin-outs in 2013. But it is unlikely they can always do this. More and more small labels are getting their name out there (CUBE, FNC, Starship are not particularly small if you ask me), especially with programs like Producer 101 (there's a guy ver too if I'm not wrong). Competition is no longer within big3, and it's been proven that daesang is not just for big3 alone. Tough times, huh.

Well of course there's a lot more challenges, but those are the main 2 I've identified. And here's my forecast for the companies.

2017-2020

SM will still be standing fine. In between this period, their oldest bestsellers TVXQ & Super Junior will be back on stage by 2018. It is unlikely that their best girl group SNSD will not resign after their 10 year (or so I heard) contract expires. That's quite a bit of revenue garaunteed already (old is gold for proof please look at how Jaejoong's album is actually slaying on GDA wtf that boy has been in army for 2 years of no promotion). SHINee and EXO will be most active during this period as SM work to exhaust every bit of them before their enlistment. RV & NCT (and all their whatever subunits) will be heavily pushed, but it's uncertain if it will be as bad as they did so with EXO - after all, SM may have the highest revenue, but their net profit is lacking (spent way too much on some groups if you ask me - if you listen carefully, you can hear fx crying from the basement #sorrycantresist). Hence, there is no reason to believe SM won't be standing firmly - the other two from the big3 is no competition, and BTS one group alone cannot make Bighit a match for this giant.

For YG, it's highly debatable. Unlike SM, Big Bang is YG's key moneymaker (they've always contributed to half the company's revenue, and I think at a point in time 75% of YG's revenue was from Big Bang). And with this money maker on group hiatus for the next 5 years, I daresay it's not gonna be a smooth ride. Especially since both GD & Taeyang will be enlisting in 2018, and those two has always been the best performing soloist in BB. And of course, the only senior girl group of YG has been disbanded (yes I am still salty I didn't get to see a 2NE1 comeback since Come Back Home). The remaining idols groups are Winner, Ikon and Black Pink, although YG still have PSY (although the craze about his songs have died out, more or less). Winner lost Nam Taehyun (I am salty about this too wtf YG why you do this). Even if we disregard that, neither Winner or Ikon is a match for SM's boy bands (physical sales or digital sales wise) - hell they're not even a match for groups from smaller labels (BTS, to be more precise, and many people have high anticipations for Seventeen and Monsta X too).

Usually big3 artists start to win daesang from their third year onwards (EXO is an exception because SM is mad bye I'm still not over that 2013 daesang that DBSK and SJ wasn't nominated for despite having the highest album sales), so YG's future depends a lot on whether Winner and/or Ikon can start winning daesangs - really hard to say, given how strong EXO is still going, and BTS the unpredicted dark horse. And YG artists have never sold half as well as SM for physical disks, they do win a lot more for digital sales though. Quick sidetrack: SM won album daesang 7 times on MAMA and 9 times on GDA; on the flipside YG won song of the year (basically digital sales) 6 times on MAMA and 4 times on GDA; JYP however has mild performance on both sides (they are slightly better in physical sales than YG, and slightly better in digital sales than SM). Anyways, we'll see if YG's newer groups match up to their seniors' standard in the upcoming 2 years or so. As of Black Pink, my best wishes go to them in holding against the crazy competition with not just big3 girl groups but also those from smaller labels that are finally being more appreciated. Perhaps YG will try to debut more groups, but I don't think that will help a lot since groups barely earn profits in their debut times and I think YG should just spend the money they got from exhausting Big Bang with all those tours this year on their existing groups (particularly on winner please wtf stop neglecting them you owe them enough), while leveraging off BB solos whenever they could.

As for JYP, I think they may still stay within the big3 provided nothing happens to Twice (their only group to get daesang after WG and 2PM died out in terms of the hype). Ah, twice. Never seen a more overhyped group without the efforts of the company in my life. I'm pretty certain something will happen though, unstable popularity burst usually do no good in the end (see the case of the consecutive EXO lawsuits, and now I miss OT12), the group will pull through, but it will probably take over a year. I'm hoping that GOT7 will do much better than they did (I honestly didn't know they were a big3 group in their first year of debut) - Fly got them more attention, but definitely not enough. JYP may debut more groups (maybe let out some of those gems he eliminated in sixteen -.-) but I'm not quite sure where that will get them. Their senior groups (2PM, WG) are still active, but have only been mildly received, and when the hell even was the last Miss A comeback (still salty for Jia too).

Overall, I think both YG & JYP will be a bit rocky, but its too early to say they will be out of the big3.

2020-2025 (the furthest I can predict)

Here's where it can be a bit rocky for SM, because here's when EXO and SHINee will start enlisting (but not that much, since SHINee members proved to be highly potential soloists and EXO's age range is well distributed enough to still have group activities at certain times). And given the uncertainty of whether their oldest bestsellers TVXQ, SJ and SNSD can continue their legacy (I think they can though, groups like GOD, Shinhwa and Busker Busker have proved so), and whether RV and NCT prove strong enough a match against external competition, SM's performance may be in danger. But overall, no doubt they will still be in the big3.

YG will relish the return of all members of Big Bang, and there'll definitely be a freaking lit comeback (read: money money money). Winner, Ikon and Black Pink will hopefully be more established by then. Here on YG can work on debuting new groups to really transit into the next gen of kpop. If YG holds on until 2020, I think they don't have much to worry.

Future's a lot more uncertain for JYP though. If the hype about Twice dies out (which it most probably will) and GOT7 hasn't stepped up performance by a large margin, I think they really do stand a chance of falling out of the big3.

Overall, kudos to SM for having this so well plannned lol I just realised they will never fall short of revenue at whatever point in time. And YG, I hope they've learnt to not put all faith in one group. And JYP... well... all the best I guess. I actually quite like GOT7...

I'm out! And a late congrats to BTS <3 I've said it a thousand times on ins and twitter but... I'm just so proud. I do have qutie something to talk about the fandom though, will save that for another post.