Le Seraphim and New Jeans Daum 'Female version of Enhyphen'

《Kim Jiwon's Hidden Track》
Ten Asia reporter Kim Ji-won takes a closer look at the hidden stories of the music industry. We will vividly convey the facts and truth of the music industry issues.

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Hive is looking for a new girl group. From Le Seraphim, the first girl group created by recruiting IZ*ONE members, to New Jeans, produced by Min Hee-jin, who has been in charge of the concept for SM singers such as Girls' Generation and EXO, Hive made a series of hit girl groups. The next girl group is selected through the JTBC audition 'RU Next?' Attention is focusing on whether Hive's successful method, which has emphasized 'communication', will work.

The first broadcast on the 30th is 'R-U Next', a survival program in collaboration with JTBC and Belief Lab. Belief Lab is a joint venture between CJ ENM and Hive. This program is the second season of Mnet's survival audition 'I-LAND', which aired in 2020.

The group created through 'I-Land' is ENHYPEN. ENHYPEN drew attention even before its official debut in that it is a new boy group of Hive, which produced global star BTS. In addition, the program was filmed in a 3,000-pyeong extra-large complex dedicated space. The production cost was 20 billion won and the production period was only 3 years. However, the viewership ratings were barely in the 0% range, and the topicality was insignificant. It was an achievement that fell short of expectations.

However, they aimed to become global idols from the beginning. There was little response from the domestic community, but the format that was more like survival than audition and observational reality that it advocated snatched the tastes of teenagers and foreigners. There were also opinions that the way the trainees themselves decide who to release was cruel to the young participants, but on the other hand, there were also opinions that it was tense and exciting.

In this way, ENHYPEN gradually began to form a global fandom. Fortunately, the strategy of building a strong fandom by targeting overseas markets rather than gaining even recognition among the domestic public worked. They became the 5th group in history to achieve more than 1 million copies, and became a singer who sold more than 1 million copies of their album in the shortest period of time after debuting in 1 year and 8 months.

Before their official debut, ENHYPEN created various social accounts and actively communicated with fans. One of the secrets of BTS' success is also considered 'communication with fans in many ways'. Enhyphen was also able to form a global fan base in this way.

In this 'RU Next', the 'female version of ENHYPEN' will be selected. It contains the process of 22 female trainees from Belief Lab participating in the 7 round missions. Trainees who were in the final debut group of Le Seraphim, trainees who were trainees with New Jeans members, and trainees who appeared as child actors in movies with 10 million viewers will participate in this survival. It will be broadcast all over the world through the Hive Labels YouTube channel and simultaneously broadcast on Abema and JTBC in Japan. Like Enhyphen, it aimed at 'global fandom'.

In addition, considering the explanation of the production team that this program is approached in a 'character documentary way', it is expected that the bond between the trainees and the fans will be significantly increased. The cumulative number of views of the participants' profile videos uploaded to the official TikTok account of 'RU Next' has already exceeded 17 million views before the broadcast. Like BTS and ENHYPEN, this can also be aimed at 'communicating with fans' early on.

The survival program is a kind of 'open recruitment'. As much as the debut preparation process is open to the public, there are both advantages and disadvantages. The topicality may be low, or the viewership rating may be sluggish. However, 'close communication' with the public is a very attractive factor in forming a new group because it can increase the level of liking. This is why the 'female version of Enhyphen' is expected positively following Le Seraphim and New Jeans.

Reporter Kim Ji-won, Ten Asia bella@tenasia.co.kr