Concerns over the departure of artists under SM Entertainment who are about to renew their contracts arose amid the intensifying acquisition battle between HYBE and Kakao.

SM Artists Receive 'Love Calls' From Big Agencies, People Discuss Agency's Future

In the K-pop scene, SM Entertainment is the biggest "kingdom" housing numerous iconic groups and artists from first gen to fourth gen. However, after about two decades of reign, fans are worried that this may be crushed down sooner.

As a brief background, SM Entertainment is currently having an infighting between founder Lee Soo Man and its CEOs Lee Sung Soo and Tak Young Joon. Various reasons are causing the dispute, but the main concern is the battle over the company's management rights, in which HYBE and Kakao were also involved.

As the discord is being prolonged, the artists belonging to the agency started hinting at how they were affected by it already, such as having delayed comeback and releases and poor promotional activities.

ALSO READ: What Is 'SM 3.0' Era? Agency To Debut 4 Artists, Release 41 Albums, More Details

In this regard, there are concerns about what will happen to SM Entertainment artists, especially when either HYBE or Kakao succeeded in acquiring the major shares of the company.

In this unpredictable situation, insiders stated that a large number of artists from SM were already receiving "love calls" from big agencies to terminate their contracts and transfer to them.

Among them were Kangta, BoA, TVXQ Chang-min and Yunho Super Junior, Girls' Generation's Taeyeon, Yoona, Yuri, Hyoyeon, Sunny, SHINee, EXO, Red Velvet and NCT. Most of their contracts will expire this year and next year, thus, agencies contacting these artists are expected to increase even more.

If the aforementioned groups will decide to leave SM all at once, the only group that will be left behind will be aespa, which debuted in 2020.

Although aespa cemented its name in the music scene as a "fourth-gen representative," a lot of fans think they will "not be enough" to carry the whole SM, which is also a fault of the company for giving the quartet fewer releases and activities that slowed down their growth compared to NewJeans, IVE and LE SSERAFIM.

SM Entertainment Artists Lineup in 2023

Despite insiders' reports, CEOs Lee and Tak earlier expressed their desire to eradicate Lee Soo Man's old system and start their own management system.

Under the so-called SM 3.0 era, naevis, the protagonist in aespa's unique worldview will debut as a virtual artist. There will be 40+ albums to be released this year as well, not to mention the long lineup of world tours and concerts this 2023.

Contrary to the speculations that SM artists will leave the company, a lot of artists were expected to continue their activities this year such as SHINee and EXO who will be both back as a whole after military service. SNSD Taeyeon, SHINee Onew and EXO Kai were also set to release their respective solo albums.

READ MORE: SM Entertainment 2023 Lineup: SHINee, SNSD Taeyeon, More To Make Comeback!

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Written by Eunice Dawson.