What is the "Psy Effect" and what does it mean for K-Pop as a whole?

At the MIPTV television industry conference in Cannes, Alex Carloss, YouTube's Global Head of Entertainment, had a lot to say on the matter and gave channel-owners some food for thought on how to increase their page views.

He says that before Psy released "Gangnam Style" and became a worldwide sensation, K-Pop videos on YouTube had a combined number of views hovering around two billion. Now that the breakthrough video itself is nearing the two billion mark, the total number for Korean pop videos online is upwards of seven billion.

Carloss suggests that many YouTube channel-owners have started to change their focus and encourages them to create fanbases rather than the traditional sense of an audience.

"An audience tunes in when they are told to, a fanbase chooses when and what to watch," he explained. "An audience changes the channel when their show is over. A fanbase shares. It comments, it curates, it creates."

And aside from creating loyal fans, K-Pop is the perfect example of another point made by Carloss in Cannes last week - the potential of artists to reach viewers on a global scale.

He claims that on average, 60% of views for channels come from outside their home countries, and for many popular channels, that number is much higher.

"Today, the lion's share of people watching K-Pop videos live outside of Asia - 91% of them outside Korea."

YouTube has been a game-changer for Korean artists. Carloss explained, "For so long language has served as a barrier between cultural exchange, but thanks to the power of video and the internet, those barriers are breaking down entirely." Which means now, more than ever before, the breadth of the pop music being produced in Korea is only a click away for its fans across the globe.