kpop idols

While my last blog was quite fun this one looks towards a more serious side. Which is how much a pop idol makes. Rather than focusing on K-pop alone, I have looked into both k-pop and J-pop to gather a fuller research pool. 

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Erina Kamiya of J-Pop group The Masked Girls posted 2 Youtube videos in 2017 that focused on the topic of money. According to asiancrush.com, an Asian movie streaming site that has translated the two videos, Kamiya begins the first video by claiming that she earned around 20 million yen a month, which translates to around $268,160 AUD. Kamiya quickly reveals that this is a lie, “fiction”. In her second video, Kamiya reveals that her monthly earnings while in her group were actually closer to 477,436 yen, which sounds like a lot but is actually around $6000 AUD. Which is still a lot for a month in Australia, but in Japan, to get the normal living, dining, kitchen and bedroom layout you would have to pay a minimum of 195,000 yen a month (2600 AUD).

 

In Australia renting that can alone get you a 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom, 1 car space in the middle of Sydney with money left over. According to the Cost of living in Japan website, adding up the estimate of the monthly rent, utilities, mobile phones, internet access, one restaurant meal and 3 coffees a month you are already at 218,900 yen (2900 AUD). This is also without the expenses of buying new clothes, groceries or owing a car. Which is already a lot for a month. Kamiya would have had money left over with these calculations but after groceries and extra possible expenses, it might not have been that much. However, Kamiya sits at one of the highest salaries out of the 3 Idols I’ve found who have revealed their salaries. 

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The second artist is another J-pop idol, Megumi Ohori, a former member of AKB48 and SDN48. Ohori revealed her salary through her official blog revealing that when she was with idol group AKB48 she was earning around 45,000 yen (602 AUD) per month which is nowhere near the level of what Kamiya was earning. Ohori described that “there were times in those days where she would live of 29 yen bean sprouts” (Vahanian, 2019).

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The last artist is Prince Mak former member of JJCC who is a K-pop idol who released a video that went behind the scenes on how much money his idol group really earned. He revealed that artists with the 3 big companies S.M. Entertainment, YG Entertainment and JYP Entertainment will be paid quickly with no worries but for almost every other K-pop Idol company it is different. 

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The companies have a “break-even” model where “all of the money earned by its idols go towards paying back all the money invested in them, such as training, food, accommodation, staff, and production of MVs” (SBS PopAsia HQ, 2018). Mak describes that a regular K-pop idol group will earn about $4000 USD (5800 AUD) a show which is split 90% to the company and 10% to the artist. This means that it’s incredibly difficult to save money as the artist when the group is around 400USD (43000 YEN) after each show. Plus, this is then split between the group. 

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Which seems almost impossible to make a living on. Kamiya’s case seemed to be the outlier in the three but is still worth mentioning to show the divide between what different idol groups earn and how it can affect their living situation. 

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