(CNN Business) Disney is adding the world’s biggest band, BTS, to its list of digital stars by putting their music on its streaming services.
The entertainment giant told CNN Business on Monday that it would add new original shows with members of the South Korean pop group to its Disney+ service.
This will lead to five new titles with HYBE, the company that manages BTS. The company used to be called Big Hit Entertainment.
At least two of the new titles will be filmed with the whole band. These include a concert special that will be taped in Los Angeles and a documentary series that will show what goes on behind the scenes. Disney thinks that the second one will come out next year.
In a video message that CNN Business got from the band, they said they were excited to show fans “a more close-up and personal side of us.”
BTS has had a meteoric rise to fame in the past few years, gaining a huge number of fans around the world who call themselves the “Army.”
The seven-person group recently said, though, that they would be taking a break to work on different projects, including some on their own.
This is shown by the new deal with Disney. The company said that one upcoming title is a reality show where V from BTS will go on vacation with other Korean celebrities.
In a joint statement, Disney and HYBE said that the band’s documentary will also show how they spend their days “as they prepare for their second chapter.”
No one said what the deal was for. The move shows that Disney (DIS) is putting its attention on top-tier talent as it keeps going after Netflix (NFLX) and tries to cash in on the recent popularity of Korean content and culture.
Last year, for example, fans all over the world were talking about “Squid Game,” Netflix’s South Korean hit that became the top show in the world for the company. Disney said it has also done well with shows like “Snowdrop,” a Korean series that has become one of its most-watched shows in Asia in recent years.
Disney’s head of content for Asia-Pacific, Jessica Kam-Engle, said in a statement, “This collaboration shows our creative ambition: to work with iconic content creators and top stars in Asia-Pacific so that mainstream audiences can enjoy their talent in more than one way.” “We think these new titles will be interesting to people all over the world, and we can’t wait to add more music to our service.”
The company said in October that it would be making a big push into Asian content, which this move is a part of. It wants to give the green light to more than 50 original titles from the region by 2023.
At the time, the big Hollywood studio said it was getting new shows from South Korea, Japan, Australia, Taiwan, and Indonesia. Many of the programmes, from Bahasa Indonesia to Mandarin, will be shown in the local languages.
Netflix has also been spending a lot of money on original Asian-language content and bragging about how popular its Korean and Japanese shows are around the world.
But the company’s stock has been under pressure in recent months after it said in April that it had lost subscribers for the first time in ten years. The news sparked more talk about the streaming industry’s long-term prospects.
But investors seem to be less worried about Disney. The company said in its most recent earnings presentation in May that it had added more Disney+ subscribers than expected over the past quarter, bringing its total to 137.7 million.
