In times of the COVID-19 crisis it’s impossible to have an international conference with guests from all around the world in Vienna. Therefore, the 11th Vienna Music Business Research Days on “Emerging Music Markets” will be held as an online conference only. Nevertheless we will have exciting conference guests from Asian as well as Eastern European countries to highlight the specifities of emerging music markets in these regions. Find the program (Central European Summertime) here.
Bernie Cho (DFSB Kollective, Seoul, South Korea) will talk about the “Music Market in South Korea” and the economic impact of K-Pop on September 23, 09:15-10:00 (CEST) and will then join the onlinel panel discussion on “Emerging Music Markets in Asia” with Weining Hung (LUCfest, Tainan, Taiwan), Achille Forler (Music Curator and The Indian Performing Right Society, Mumbai, India) and Philipp Grefer (WISE, Beijing, China).
Bernie Cho is the President of DFSB Kollective, a Seoul-based Artist & Label Services agency that specializes in providing digital media, marketing, and distribution solutions to 600+ Korean Pop music artists. As more K-Pop acts aspire to go independent and international, DFSB Kollective collaborates with artists and their management companies to devise customized strategies that directly connect them to their local and global fans. Since 2009, the agency has successfully produced numerous K-Pop concerts and showcases in North America, Asia, and Europe as well as secured #1 Apple iTunes Music chart debuts for various K-Pop albums in the US, Canada, Japan, Korea, Greater China, Australasia, Southeast Asia, and Europe.
In order to raise the recognition of Korean music internationally, DFSB Kollective is a member of Merlin Network (global digital music rights agency for world’s leading independent labels) and an official Korean content provider for Apple iTunes Music, Spotify, Amazon, YouTube Music, Deezer, TIDAL, Pandora, iHeart Radio, Facebook, TikTok, Tencent Music, NetEase, KKBox, AWA, JioSaavn, Boomplay, and Yandex.
As one of the first and foremost K-Pop music exporters, DFSB Kollective and its artists have been featured speakers/performers at top international music industry events (CMJ, CMW, SXSW, Coachella, The Great Escape, Glastonbury, Summer Sonic, Music Matters, MusicBiz, MIDEM) and profiled in leading international media outlets (BBC, Billboard, Bloomberg, CNN, Discovery, E!, Forbes, Monocle, MTV, Newsweek, New York Times, NPR, Pitchfork, Spin, Time, Wall Street Journal).
Prior to founding DFSB Kollective, Bernie served as the Head of MTV Korea’s Digital Media Production and worked for nearly 2 decades in the Korean music TV industry as a Creative Planner, Program Producer, and Show Host. He has earned a BA from Dartmouth College in Government/Asian Studies and has graduated from the UCLA Anderson School of Management (Executive Entertainment & Media Program) and the Vancouver Film School (Foundation Film Program).
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