Does South Korea’s Melon chart ranking influence K-pop artists’ overall YouTube views?

Abstract

Although K-pop has been diffused throughout the world by YouTube and become globalized, artist’s success is still evaluated by their reputation within the domestic market. Amidst the intense competition in the South Korean music industry, it’s inevitable that artists would hope their songs perform well on the domestic chart as it’s a way to gain public attention. Thus, it leads to the question; “Are some artists putting too much stress on the domestic performances when the global market is also an opportunity?”. To answer the question, this study analyzes the data by quantitative approach to examine whether Melon chart ranking, a music streaming platform with the highest number of users in South Korea, predicts K-pop artist’s overall YouTube views. In other words, whether the domestic popularity predicts global popularity.

Results showed that Melon chart ranking predicted artists’ overall YouTube views especially those who have considerably high global YouTube views and a large proportion of South Korea YouTube views during the test period. On the other hand, Melon chart ranking did not predict overall YouTube views for some Melon artists with comparatively low global YouTube views. Melon’s position as a leading music streaming platform in South Korea was also affirmed by the results in predicting South Korea YouTube Music chart.