The organisers dropped the ball badly if they did because it means that they didn’t secure the licensing rights (or couldn’t come to an agreement with SM) in selling merchandise. They probably thought that nobody is crazy enough to buy plastic fans, trading cards and bright-pink towels lol. There was a lot on sale in SM Town Paris.

He could be a consultant and conferred to for guidance but the day-to-day running of the company is all the active directors and CEO. However, if he was acting in any significant way, the shareholders and investors would not be happy: they would wany anyone in a significant position to be officially registered as a director of the company (which is legally required of directors in any country in the world) or to be given an official position as a consultant so that he is liable for any advice he gives (which helps protect their investments).

I agree with the first part of the statement, not so much with the second part.

I think SM could spend far more time on artist development and allocating more resources to all the groups during others’ promotion cycles than they do already. They are financially capable of doing it if they rearranged their assets to be more liquid and also hired more people in their staff.

Dance tracks are chart toppers. Ballads usually aren’t.

If you’re trying to save money and work with the projects that yield the highest return on investment, then you’d be focusing on the dance tracks and spending money on making it as visually as appealing as possible.

Not this fast, this quickly. Whenever any of the big three moves, the Korean entertainment industry stops to watch.

But SM still set the standard as industry leaders and this is acknowledged by the biggest financial investors in Korea. Now with their last debuted group being three years ago (their last male group being four), there is a lot of interest. What has SM been doing with their male trainees in their famed academy in the past 4+ years?

And they said SM were stupid for forcing the issue… maybe SM are negotiating geniuses.

SM artists tend to split individual earnings individually and group earnings as part of a group.

JYJ are breaking all the rules. In general, public figures are not meant to flaunt their material gains in Korea and are especially expected to support national industries by buying Korean luxury cars instead if they want to be seen as patriotic.

Humility is a big thing.

SM tends to record and document everything at every event the are at without releasing the material. I’m sure they’d sell the footage whenever they have the time and production capacity to do it.

They probably settled out of court, if SM even had any legal ownership over the international license.

It’s why I keep saying they should just open up an SM Entertainment museum to have all of these things on display.

I guess it’s a possibility but with f(x) getting geared up for Japan and SNSD’s schedule pretty much booked out (as nine) for the next 6-12 months, it’s not likely to happen any time soon.