If 2022 was the year of the girl groups, 2023 is expected to be the year of the boy groups, with many new boy groups anticipated to debut.
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The industry is already dubbing the upcoming new boy groups as 'the 5th generation rookie groups,' expressing great anticipation for the boy group generation shift.
According to entertainment insiders, 2023 is when the four major entertainment companies (HYBE, SM Entertainment, JYP Entertainment, and YG Entertainment) have more rookie group debut schedules than ever. There are around 10 idol groups that are scheduled to debut in Korea, Japan, the United States, and China from the 4 major agencies, and 7 of them are boy groups.
HYBE label plans to introduce new boy groups from their subsidiaries Pledis Entertainment and KOZ Entertainment. JYP Entertainment will launch a boy group selected through the SBS audition program 'Loud,' a Chinese group under Project C, and a boy group version of the popular girl group NiziU in Japan. SM Entertainment is scheduled to debut NCT Tokyo and a new boy group unrelated to NCT. It is known that YG Entertainment has no plans for a boy group.
A number of audition programs are also planned, centering on boy groups. Mnet's 'Boys Planet' and MBC's 'Boys Fantasy' will be broadcast this year. These are the boy group versions of 'Girls Planet 999', which gave birth to the girl group Kep1er last year, and 'My Teenage Girl,' which released CLASS:y this year.
In addition, several small and medium-sized agencies have plans to release boy groups in the new year.
Over the past two years (2021-2022), new boy group debuts have been rare. Only 13 to 15 teams debuted in a year, and only 2 teams, including Japanese localized groups, debuted from the Big 4 agencies. In comparison, in 2017, a total of 57 boy groups debuted, and from 2018 to 2020, 4th generation boy groups were poured out from the Big 4 companies.
In 2023, the 4th generation of boy groups will have been promoting for 4 to 6 years, thus making it a natural time for a generational shift. Furthermore, with BTS taking a break due to their military hiatus, the boy group market is expected to enter a new era.
A representative of the music industry said, "The boy groups that represented one generation are entering a hiatus due to enlistment in the military or dispersed due to contract renewal issues, and naturally transitioned to the next generation. A new idol generation will begin with the appearance of the 5th generation boy group since BTS will enter their military hiatus."
Source: Allkpop
