If you ever wanted to own a karaoke bar that doesn’t sell alcohol in Daegu, today is your lucky day: The South Korean government feels the threat of piracy is worth giving the country’s music business a $91 million bailout that will fund the construction of multiple concert halls and a K-Pop Hall of Fame, the establishment of some local music charts, an annual awards ceremony, and a mass giveaway of equipment to the private karaoke rooms known as noraebangs. And no legal action!

Ministers hope the five-year plan will double the country’s annual sales, online and in shops, to 1.7 trillion won (1.2 billion dollars) by 2013, they said in a statement.

Under the plan, the ministry will open in December this year two concert halls in Seoul, which will specialise in pop music and offer some 4,000 seats in total.

It will also build a K-pop culture centre in Goyang City, around 40 km (25 miles) north of Seoul, by 2013, which will include a 3,000-seat pop concert hall, a hall of honour for local pop artists and an exhibition hall.

The ministry will also support 35,000 noraebangs — karaoke bars without alcohol — across the country by providing karaoke equipment.

What was missing from this report was whether the Culture, Sports and Tourism Ministry would be sponsoring and supporting the emergent music blog industry. We haven’t extensively covered K-Pop stars like Rain in the past, but send a million won our way and it’ll be all K-Pop all the time around here! We’ll even set up our own karaoke room!

SKorea to spend 91 million dollars to bolster K-pop music [AFP]
Bi Rain – With You [YouTube]