Does South Korea's Melon chart ranking influence k-pop artists' 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 the global popularity.

Results showed that there was no Granger Causality in Melon chart ranking predicting overall YouTube views as overall YouTube views also showed significance in predicting Melon chart ranking. Two-way prediction was present in most songs which means Melon chart ranking of a song and artist’s overall YouTube views move along together in terms of popularity and South Korea’s Melon chart ranking is not a leading indicator that brings about artists’ global popularity.