Entertainment industry is already one of the fastest growing industries worldwide with an expected annual growth rate of 6.65% and projected market value of 42.54 billion U.S. dollars in 2027, which marks a huge difference from the recent 29.35 billion. The industry contains various sub-contents including music, media, and cartoons. However, due to its characteristics of fast-shifting trends and dependence on consumer’s taste, entertainment companies exhibit a unique form of business strategy that is not seen in other sectors.

Originality is an attention grabbing issue that internet users are focusing on. It is a very important and sensitive subject for artists. Every entertainment, even at the same agency, tries to create different and unique images for each performer. People’s attention and regards are the main goals that artists and entertainers live for. They strive to catch the trends to get a unique and because unique characteristics lead to success in today’s society, and some who have overlapping images with another artist, even if it's not on purpose, will buy a doubt from netizens. For example, South Korean influencer Freezia and WonYoung of Kpop group Ive have overlapping impressions on people. Their characteristics, voice, behavior, and styles, etc. are all overlying to each other. So the internet people started to discover who started first and who followed it. This is a problem not only in Korea, but also across the border, and in most cases, it is not clear who followed and who started first. However, there is one representative case that anyone was able to identify the ‘original’. Recently, North Korea introduced a group of musicians who are suspected of copying 2017 South Korea girl group Gfriend’s song “Fingertip”. Social people felt that it was obvious that they copied a South Korean girl group’s song, and started to criticize the musicians through the internet, which resulted in a degradation of their image.

Another unique trend in the entertainment industry is the expansionist actions of companies that include active M&As. Recently in Korea, there has been a power struggle between Kakao and Hybe entertainment over the integration of SM, which is another Korean entertainment business. Other major entertainment companies such as Melon, YG, and CJ each formed partnership or alliance with either Hybe and Kakao, escalating the scale of the competition to an unprecedented level in the industry. There are also similar alliances or integrations involving entertainment businesses outside of Korea. For instance, China’s gaming firm Tencent has acquired Riot Games and Supercell, while Disney also purchased Marble and 20th century fox. The influence of Intellectual properties yield in the entertainment industry is the main reason why the sector has so many cases of M&As. Intellectual properties, more commonly known for IPs, are creative creations that frequently take the form of characters and ‘fictional universes’. The more of the IPs that a company possesses means that they could attract more customers. And since having more customers directly correlates with success in the entertainment sector, more and more companies in the industry are utilizing M&A as a strategy to prosper their company.

As time passes, the entertainment industries' profit structure is gradually changing. In the past, the entertainment industries clearly aimed to " entertain the users.” They provided interesting services as much as they could. However, nowadays, there are many companies which have developed tremendously. Thus, they are more focused on their profits. Their profit structure had changed from “consumer-friendly” to “producer-friendly.” To be specific, Netflix already shows a move to get rid of a “consumer-friendly” company. They are planning to ban account sharing. Many users worldwide are sharing the account with their friends or families, but they realize that it doesn’t give them enough profit. With the single purpose of gaining more profit, Netflix decided to make an unfavorable change to the users.

As society advances and more people seek higher order desires of enjoyment, the entertainment industry has successfully blended from an extravagance to part of our everyday life. However, even though the prospect of the entertainment sector looks fairly promising, people should first consider it from other sectors and try to accurately understand how its businesses function before making a deep dive into the next blue ocean.