Why Is YG Falling Behind Its Rivals? Just One New Group in Five Years

YG Entertainment takes significantly longer to debut new groups than its biggest rivals. Over the past 10 years, the company's average gap betweengroup debuts has been about four times as long as those of HYBE, SM Entertainment and JYP Entertainment. In the past five years, it has debuted just one new group, BABYMONSTER.

The slow pace has drawn criticism from within the industry. The longer new debuts are delayed, the fewer chances the company has to develop its next major act. This could make it increasingly difficult for YG to reduce its reliance on BLACKPINK.

The company's latest earnings, released on Nov. 9, show how much it still depends on the group. YG Entertainment posted consolidated revenue of 156.7 billion won for the third quarter of this year, down about 9.4% from the same period last year. In the third quarter of 2025, revenue from BLACKPINK's world tour pushed the company to its highest quarterly figure ever.

BABYMONSTER is making progress. The group drew 90,000 concertgoers across its Japan concerts. However, the group is not yet big enough to fill the gap while BLACKPINK is away from group activities.

On the same day, a reporter asked whether debut dates had been set for the company's next boy group and girl group. "We are preparing," a YG Entertainment official said. "There is nothing we can share right now."

A month has passed since the company first announced plans to launch new groups. No further details have been revealed since.

JYP Entertainment, meanwhile, is moving faster. SQU4D, one of the company's artist divisions, recently announced that its new boy group, oftheblue, is preparing for its debut. The group has already opened official social media accounts and launched a website.

The numbers show just how wide the gap has become. Over the past 10 years, YG Entertainment has gone about three years and six months, on average, between new artist debuts. It has been about two years and seven months since BABYMONSTER,the company's latest group, made its debut. At HYBE, SM Entertainment and JYP Entertainment, the average gap is around 11 months.

Many in the industry point to YG Entertainment's production process. Producer Yang is closely involved in nearly every part of each group's development, from concept and music to performance. This approach helps maintain the company's signature style, but it can slow down the debut process compared with a multi-label system, where several chief producers work on different projects simultaneously.

HYBE, SM Entertainment and JYP Entertainment have distributed their production operations across separate labels, divisions and centers. That lets them prepare several new acts at at the same time.

HYBE completed its transition to a multi-label system in 2019. Since then, it has introduced a new act roughly every seven months, on average. In the five years before that, Big Hit Music, the company that later evolved into HYBE, did not launch a single new group.

SM Entertainment adopted a multi-production-center system in 2023. Since then, it has debuted a new act approximately every six months. In the five years before the change, the average gap was one year and 10 months.

JYP Entertainment fully launched its production division system in 2018. Its average gap between new groups debuts shortened slightly, from around 11 months in the previous five years to 10 months.

Under this setup, each label still has relatively long gaps between its own debuts. However, because several teams take turns launching new acts, the company as a whole can introduce new groups more frequently. Big Hit Music, for example, debuted TOMORROW X TOGETHER five years and eight months after BTS, followed by CORTIS six years and five months later. Another HYBE label, BELIFT LAB, launched ENHYPEN and ILLIT three years and three months apart.

With fewer new groups than its rivals, YG Entertainment faces greater pressure to make its upcoming boy and girl groups successful. Its earnings fluctuate significantly depending on its current artists activities, making it important to secure new sources of income. The longer debuts are delayed, the bigger the worry about fixed costs weighing on results.

Even with strong concepts and performances, there is no guarantee that a new act will succeed. That is why the timing between debuts matters. Spacing out new acts is also part of building an artist portfolio that keeps a company's earnings steady.

YG Entertainment has a track record of building successful acts over time. After BIGBANG debuted in 2006, the company produced four more successful acts, 2NE1, AKMU, WINNER and iKON, before debuting BLACKPINK in 2016. HYBE debuted eight groups after BTS before launching KATSEYE, which has since become one of its most prominent acts in the global market.

Trends are changing faster than ever, and rookies from smaller agencies are rising quickly. For YG Entertainment, the question is bigger than one boy group or one girl group. It is whether the company can build a system that consistently produces new stars, and the clock keeps running.