Native Music Platforms Increase Volume with 'Original Content'

[Asia Economy Reporter Kang Nahum] As overseas music platforms such as YouTube Music and Spotify intensify their efforts to penetrate the domestic market, native music platforms like Melon, Genie Music, and Flo are feeling an increasing sense of crisis. Domestic platforms are pursuing differentiation strategies through active investment and production of ‘original content.’

According to the big data platform Mobile Index on the 26th, as of June, YouTube Music’s monthly active users (MAU) were recorded at 3.71 million. This is an increase of nearly 2 million users from 1.78 million in June last year, within just one year.

YouTube Music has already surpassed Flo (2.99 million), which had consistently held the third place, and is now threatening the positions of Melon (8.88 million), the number one domestic service, and Genie Music (5.06 million), the second place. Spotify, the world’s largest music streaming platform, which officially launched its service in February, recorded an MAU of 340,000 as of June and continues to steadily increase its user base.

◆ Established as an essential route for music promotion = In response to these overseas music platforms, domestic platforms are differentiating themselves by producing original content across various genres. Melon is recently focusing on expanding its original audio content service, ‘Melon Station.’

Melon Station delivers a wide range of music genres and thematic music stories by presenting various formats of audio entertainment programs, including music talk shows, every week. It has established itself as a leading original audio content platform, with 20% of Melon’s paid subscribers using the service.

In the past, singers releasing new albums promoted their work by appearing on terrestrial variety shows, but now it has become common for artists to introduce their music and stories on Melon Station, according to Melon.

Representative programs include ‘Digging On Air,’ hosted by musicians Naul and Echobridge; DJ Pororo’s ‘Turn Up the Volume,’ which features popular children’s songs and entertaining stories; ‘Movies & This is Park Sun-young,’ hosted by announcer Park Sun-young; and ‘POPCAST,’ which delivers news about pop music.

In particular, ‘POPCAST’ features appearances by globally renowned musicians. On the 14th of last month, British artist Ed Sheeran, who released the single ‘Bad Habits,’ appeared to share behind-the-scenes stories of his new song’s production. Prior to that, world-class stars such as Anne Marie, Lauv, Steve Aoki, New Hope Club, and Alan Walker also appeared, drawing significant attention.

◆ Content reflecting COVID-19 also popular = Flo recently introduced ‘Lucid Fall’s Sound Jeju,’ an original audio content where singer-songwriter Lucid Fall personally collected sounds from Jeju and composed music. This experimental ambient music content is designed to delicately satisfy users’ musical tastes and vividly evoke the image of Jeju, a representative tourist destination.

Flo has been expanding its listening content and, since June, has collaborated with Musinsa Terrace, Yanolja, Jebidabang, and Hankwon Bookstore to present music and content that capture the emotions of various spaces and situations, allowing listeners to feel as if they are traveling to places that have become difficult to experience firsthand during the COVID-19 era.

Flo also released the music talk show ‘Nucksal and Kids,’ co-produced with Spoon Radio. Rapper and entertainer Nucksal meets with representative rappers of the 10s and 20s generation to share musical stories and communicate with each other. This was the first ambitious project launched after Flo signed a business agreement with Spoon Radio in April to strengthen original audio content for Generation Z and collaborate on content business.

Dreamus Company, the operator of Flo, has decided to invest approximately 200 billion KRW over three years to propel Flo to become the number one audio platform and expand its music business.

Genie Music recently released original content called ‘Hokcance’ produced with the idol group ONF. ‘Hokcance’ is a real-life metaverse content with a virtual overseas travel concept, realistically depicting episodes occurring at the destination. It portrays breaking free from the restrictions on outdoor activities during the COVID-19 era and traveling around the world.

To strengthen its own video content production, Genie Music has revamped its existing YouTube GEMS channel into ‘Genie Original’ and plans to continuously release four-dimensional travel videos like ‘Hokcance.’

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.