SM Entertainment
S.M. Entertainment Company Introduction
S.M. Entertainment (S.M. Entertainment Co., Ltd.) or SM엔터테인먼트, is the biggest entertainment agency in Korea with JYP Entertainment and YG Entertainment right behind it. The company was founded by the current chairman Lee Soo Man (이수만) on February 14, 1995. Initially, the main focus of the business was kpop music entertainment, but with the continuous expansion and growth of the company, S.M. Entertainment now branches out in different fields with its subsidiaries and affiliates. The current CEO of S.M. Entertainment is the 41 year old Kim Young Min (김영민).
The “S.M.” in S.M. Entertainment stood for Lee Soo Man’s initials but the company recently changed the name to something more meaningful; Star Museum. The new name suits the company’s reputation as it is responsible for many entertainers in various fields – artists such as Girls’ Generation, Super Junior, f(x), SHINee, TVXQ and many more; actors such as Lee Yeon Hee and Go Ara; S.M. Entertainment and its affiliate Avex Trax are also responsible for overseas artists such as Ayumi Hamasaki.
S.M. Entertainment Company Artists
S.M. Entertainment Company History
Lee Soo Man was a bright young man who attended and graduated from Seoul National University. He pursued his musical career by singing at a coffee house and eventually on national television. Although he was not popular in the beginning of his career, through major hits like “Happiness” and “One Piece of Dream,” he gained popularity. With a strong music background, he opened a business. His early career gave him a foundation and provided ideas and strategies to managing an entertainment business.
The first two groups Lee Soo Man debuted under his company, S.M. Entertainment, were the boy group H.O.T. and the girl group S.E.S.; the two groups eventually became a huge success in the late 1990s, gaining much attention and love from the South Koreans. Kpop at the time was only popular within the country, but this would change in less than a decade as the Korean Wave, or Hallyu (한류) would completely change the Korean entertainment industry. Many other kpop groups were released under S.M. Entertainment as the years went on and kpop eventually became a global phenomenon. One would say S.M. Entertainment had a major impact on globalizing kpop.