HYBE sajaegi revealed by Min Hee Jin VS HYBE hearing
On May 17th, Min Hee Jin and HYBE had its hearing. During the hearing there were many shocking disclosure between two of them, but Kpop fans were most shocked by one email that was revealed by Min Hee Jin’s representative. It was ‘pushing out albums’ strategy, that HYBE asked ADOR to sell 100,000 physical albums fraudulently to win the record of SM group aespa.
In K-pop industry, physical album sales is an important record that shows how many loyal fans they have, especially the first week sales is the most important record to check the idol’s popularity. The ‘pushing out albums’ strategy, is the way to increase the first week sales. It is a way to manipulate the records by asking retailers to buy the bulk albums to make certain record and later refunding them after the numbers they want has reached. In Korean, it can be easily called as ‘sajaegi.’
However, according to Min Hee Jin, ADOR refused to do sajaegi but HYBE sajaegi was a common strategy in HYBE labels.
HYBE sajaegi was already seen?
While HYBE and SM were having a struggle through ‘BLIND’ site, HYBE employee made a comment that might be meaningful.
Translation of the comments
- SM – It seems hard to say that it’s pure chart-in, as you did a lot of commercials?
- HYBE – Withdraw your CDs back from foreign countries.
Koreans are saying that HYBE employee thought other companies would do same as they do and wrote comments like that. The comment is resurfacing among Koreans after Min Hee Jin said it was a common strategy of HYBE.
Previous article about HYBE sajaegi issue, alleged rumors about BTS manipulating chart and court rules? CLICK HERE.
