KCON, To be Televised Live On the CW Network, Kicks Off July 26
KCON 2023 (Courtesy CJ America)
By Pious Jung
South Korea’s entertainment exports have enjoyed high-profile and, for some, surprising success in the U.S. over the past few years. “Parasite” won four Oscars in 2020 and “Decision to Leave” has won recent critical acclaim. Fox network game show “I Can See Your Voice” is the latest U.S. TV hit based on a South Korean original. K-pop group BTS matched the Beatles with three No. 1 albums and fellow group ZEROBASEONE will perform at the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles this month.
Some rightly questioned: Is this a blip, a one-time surge in popularity similar to those enjoyed by other countries’ entertainment content? Or could Korean cultural exports, often known as “K-culture,” have sustained success in the U.S.?
We believe the answer to the second question is “yes,” and we are betting on it.
As co-CEO of CJ America, the U.S. presence of Korean conglomerate CJ Group, I know that the U.S. has become the most strategically important market to our group’s growth goals outside of South Korea. Continued American uptake of South Korean cultural exports is an essential element of hitting those goals. We are encouraged by what we have seen.
CJ’s Bibigo foods became the Los Angeles Lakers’ first global marketing partner in 2021. The partnership made sense for many reasons, not the least of which is the 1 million people of Korean heritage who live in Southern California. Now, basketball fans sitting courtside and watching on TV see the Bibigo logo patch on Lakers team jerseys.
But the event that put CJ on the map in L.A. is KCON, the annual fan and artist festival for Korean culture that began as a small music show in Irvine in 2012. K-pop remains the very soul of KCON, but the festival has since grown to become a multi-day, pan-K-cultural experience in Los Angeles. (And has spread to cities in Asia, Europe and the Middle East.)
Last year’s KCON attracted a record 140,000 fans. This year’s three-day event kicks off on July 26 and spans three venues – Crypto.com Arena, the Los Angeles Convention Center and Gilbert Lindsay Plaza. The action will be continuous, transforming KCON from a series of isolated events into an all-day festival atmosphere.
Affirming the increasing popularity and marketability of K-culture is the fact that this year, for the first time, KCON will be televised live, broadcast on the CW Network.
We are betting Americans want more K-culture, but we are not doing so on the growth of KCON alone. In fact, it is only one of the data points we have considered.
For example, Korean-language dramas have become the most-streamed foreign-language content on Netflix, accounting for 8.2 percent of all of Netflix’s viewing hours, outperforming Spanish-language programming, according to the streamer.
On TikTok, 8.7 percent of the 97 million K-pop videos in existence were created by fans in the U.S., showcasing the genre’s strong foothold in American social media.
Following the U.S. success of Korean film, TV and music, market analysts wondered what the next Korean cultural export to take root in the U.S. will be. The answer may be beauty products from Korea, often known as “K-beauty.” That market in the U.S. is projected to grow at an 8.8 percent rate from 2023 to 2030.
Korean cuisine has also seen a surge in popularity, with U.S. demand for Korean food growing by 34 percent from 2012 to 2019. High-end Korean restaurants in the U.S. are winning Michelin stars. A study of Instagram tags in 2023 showed that Korean cuisine was the fourth-most popular in the world. A 2023 study of Google search terms found that “bibimbap” was the most-searched recipe of the year. Fans will find significant representation of K-food at KCON.
The music industry continues to be a driving force in K-culture’s global expansion. For many years, the largest number of K-pop fans outside of Korea lived in Japan and Southeast Asian countries, but no longer. The U.S. now ranks as the second-largest streamer of K-pop artists after Japan on U.S. music platforms, and Korean is now the third most-streamed language, following only English and Spanish, according to entertainment industry analyst Luminate.
Bibigo was the L.A. Lakers’ first global marketing partner (Courtesy CJ America)
Anecdotally, we are seeing what appears to be a convergence of Korean culture enthusiasts. K-pop’s fanbase has traditionally skewed young, and continues to do so. The audience for Korean dramas tends to be somewhat older. But now, we find K-pop fans exploring Korean TV dramas, and drama fans listening to K-pop.
CJ has skin in the American game. Our entertainment, food, logistics and bio affiliates employ more than 13,000 people in the U.S. and have invested more than $5 billion into the economy since we opened our first sales office in Los Angeles in 1978. We are in the U.S. for the long haul, and we believe K-culture is, too.
Pious Jung is co-CEO of CJ America and President of Content, Global Business for CJ ENM.