A magnified appeal. (Image: AFP/Getty Images via @daylife)
Korean pop-culture is now such a business force that it's been recognized on the cover of the latest Milken Institute Review, the quarterly "journal of economic policy" from the California nonprofit founded by onetime junk-bond king Michael Milken.
An article by a former Korea correspondent for Billboard and the Hollywood Reporter usefully lays out the past and present of the K-Pop phenomenon that has crested (?) with acts such as Psy and his Gangnam Style. They've become a global sensation, although the best pop-culture export statistic that can be marshaled, for 2011, is only $137 million in direct sales. Surely the sector's wealth factor has grown since, even if no K-Pop figure, including Lee Soo-man of leading firm SM Entertainment, has yet scaled the Forbes 50 Korea's Richest list (just released for 2013). Lee Jay-Hyun of CJ Group, which has other entertainment properties, does move up to No. 10 at $1.7 billion.
All in all, Korean celebrity culture is alive as never before. Some might find this an anomalous distraction at a time when a cruel dictator just north of Seoul threatens mass annihilation. (Ironically, Kim Jong-eun was the cover boy of the previous issue of the Milken Review.) But then, commerce can often be an antidote to political insanity, and no one can doubt the commercial reach of South Korea. Even its overall economy just had a bullish quarter!
