TV Music + K-Pop - Songwriting Royalties

If you have watched Love Island USA, The Voice, or 90 Day Fiancé, you may have already heard the music in this catalog. These songs were written for film and television. They play in the background of dating shows, talent contests, home makeovers, and cable dramas, and they have been used in more than 300 programs. Every time one of those shows airs or streams, anywhere in the world, the music earns a royalty. The catalog also includes K-pop songs by EXO, Red Velvet, Taeyeon, and TWICE, including EXO's "Love Me Right," heard in KPop Demon Hunters, Netflix's most-watched original film.

TV and film music brings in 70% of the catalog's income. Pop and dance songs add 16%, and K-pop and J-pop songs add 14%. The money comes from all over the world. About two-thirds is earned outside the United States, led by the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, and Japan. European TV networks pay much of it. In the US, much of it comes from streaming services like Peacock and Netflix.

The TV music keeps getting picked up by more shows. In mid-2023, about 86 shows paid royalties on this music each quarter. By early 2026, that number had doubled to 177. In the last year alone, 114 shows paid for the first time. The biggest new one was Love Island USA, which gave one track its best quarter on record. Music in that show earned about 9% of the catalog's income last year. That is a lot from one show, and future seasons may not use as much. Even without it, the TV music grew by nearly half. The K-pop songs have slowed as they get older, but overall, total earnings grew 16.5% compared with the year before.

The appeal of this asset is what this income does not depend on. Not one song, since the top track is 16% of the total. Not one show, since the money comes from hundreds. Not one country, and not one audience. Television keeps airing what it already has, and every rerun and every new pickup pays the same way it did the first time. The K-pop titles add a second audience on top of that, one that follows its artists across borders.

The songs in this catalog reach people in two ways: on TV and through recordings by some of Asia's biggest pop acts.

Most of the catalog is production music, written to be used in TV shows. It plays in reality, lifestyle, and drama series such as Love Island USA, The Voice, American Idol, 90 Day Fiancé, Love Is Blind, Blue Bloods, and Cobra Kai.

The K-pop side is led by EXO, one of the genre's best-selling boy groups. The catalog includes their 2015 title track "Love Me Right," which topped South Korea's digital chart and was later featured in Netflix's K-pop Demon Hunters, along with its Japanese version, Red Velvet, one of K-pop's top girl groups, appears five times, including "Zoo" (2017) and "Bad Dracula" (2016). Solo star Taeyeon sings "Feel So Fine" (2017) and "I Found You" (2019). Other songs come from TWICE, fromis_9, Girls' Generation, miss A, I.O.I, and Girl's Day.

The pop and dance songs include "Bad Case of U" by Bella Thorne, from a 2014 film soundtrack, and two singles by Dutch DJ duo Blasterjaxx. A group of independent pop singles from 2012 rounds out the catalog.