Waiting for home bands to play the right tune

The hottest topic of discussion among students, according to Sina micro blog, is neither education nor future careers; it is Hallyu stars of the Republic of Korea. A quick glance at the micro blog, reveals how much Chinese teenagers adore ROK music groups.

Chinese teenagers' love for Hallyu stars may seem superficial to many. But there is a lesson here for the Chinese music industry. Hallyu, or the Korean wave, a term coined by Chinese journalists in the late 1990s, has been used by Asian people to describe the popularity of ROK pop music, TV dramas and films.

South Korean singer PSY speaks at Harvard University's Memorial Church in Cambridge, Massachusetts May 9, 2013. [Photo / Agencies]

K-pop, the pioneering Korean wave, is extremely popular in East and Southeast Asian countries - it is catching on in other parts of the world as well. The mind-boggling popularity of "Gangnam style", a song by K-pop singer PSY - whose video had generated over 1 billion clicks on YouTube by the end of 2012 - is hard to explain. So what does K-pop owe its success to? The answer: reform and government support, and the ROK entertainment industry's well-organized "star-producing" system (though some have criticized it for its "slave contracts").

K-pop, however, still faces challenges. Perhaps free music download has hurt it the most. According to the ROK government's 2011 white paper on the music industry, the returns peaked at 410.4 billion won ($37.5 million) in 2000 but dropped to 82.3 billion won in 2010. It has dropped further over the last two years, between 70 billion and 80 billion won.

The ROK realized early that the Korean wave was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to enhance the country's image and promote its soft power. Accordingly, it introduced a series of supportive policies at the beginning of this century to help its cultural industry. And the ROK Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism decided to invest 127.5 billion won as part of its medium-term plan (2009-13) to revive the domestic music industry and internationalize K-pop.