Photo: EFE
Seoul, March 19 – Big Hit Entertainment, the agency and content producer behind the South Korean global hit K-pop band BTS, announced Friday it will change its name to Hybe.
The company needed a new name that “could encompass all the business realms that we carry out, and be a symbol for our connecting and expanding structure,” Big Hit CEO and founder Bang Si-hyuk said in an online presentation.
“What we think of as variation of music is that of the indefinite realm and I think the name Big Hit Entertainment cannot fully capture this concept,” he added.
The decision must be approved by the shareholders’ meeting at the end of this month.
In addition to the name change, Bang also announced changes to the company’s organizational structure, which will be divided into three main branches: labels, solutions and platform businesses.
The first will combine Big Hit Music, which will keep its name, and the rest of the smaller record labels that the company has acquired in recent years, such as Source Music, Pledis Entertainment and Koz Entertainment. There will also be a Japanese Hybe subdivision.
The other two branches will focus on managing intellectual property, marketing and the Weverse social network, with a focus on the millions of global followers that BTS and the rest of the company’s bands have around the world.
Photo: EFE
Going forward, Bang added, Hybe aspires to become an “entertainment lifestyle platform” serving as a meeting point for fans.
The presentation also showed what will be Hybe’s new headquarters in Yongsan district of Seoul, where the company will soon move from its current headquarters in Daechi area of Gangnam district.
Founded as a small agency in 2005, Big Hit has become the world’s largest K-pop agency, surpassing the combined value of the three former giants of the industry, SM Entertainment, JYP Entertainment, and YG Entertainment (with whom it signed a recent collaboration agreement), thanks to the success of BTS.
