#SHOWBIZ: Jennie's 'Like Jennie' tops 2025 Female Artiste Streams, beating Lady Gaga
She's consistently breaking and expanding records across major music platforms.
According to Allkpop today, her massive hit, 'Like Jennie', has been crowned the 'Most Streamed 2025 song by a Female Artist worldwide'.
This achievement, based on streaming and audio figures from platforms like Spotify and YouTube Music, saw her surpass Lady Gaga's 'Abracadabra'.
Furthermore, her album 'Ruby' has received widespread acclaim, being named the 'Best Album by a K-Pop Artist during the first half of 2025' by various specialist media outlets and prominent magazines, including Billboard, Rolling Stone, Complex, and NME.
Adding to her accolades, Pitchfork, a highly respected music website, has declared Jennie's 'Ruby' the 'Best Album by a K-pop Soloist of all time'.
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The Star
11 hours ago
- The Star
How murky world of ticket touting is making life a misery for Hong Kong concert fans
Keith Rumjahn was immensely frustrated after failing to get tickets to recent shows in Hong Kong by American comedian Jimmy O. Yang and British band Coldplay. Tickets were available in the secondary market – but cost at least twice their face value. Trying to book a public basketball court is another great source of irritation for Rumjahn, as he and his friends are only able to secure slots from touts who mark up the charge tenfold, from HK$100 to HK$200 to HK$1,000 to HK$2,000. Rumjahn, the founder of a fitness and sports apps and games company, attempted to counter the scalpers with a self-made automated booking agent but it proved futile. He said scalpers' sophisticated bots – software applications designed to perform automated, repetitive tasks – entered the system within 10 seconds of bookings opening and snapped up all the courts, while his own programme took a few minutes. 'We have a group that plays three times a week and we still buy from the scalpers. I guess that's the only way anyone is getting to play, right?' Rumjahn said. But Rumjahn, who is in his forties, said he refused to support concert ticket touts even though it had become the norm for anyone wanting high-demand experiences to buy from them. 'The whole ticketing system is not very transparent. Getting tickets was impossible,' he said. 'Every single Kai Tak show has been sold out, so obviously there are scalpers. 'I think the culture of making fast money, that flip mentality, in Hong Kong is so deep and people just got accustomed to buying from scalpers.' From buying tickets for pop concerts to booking sports venues, scalping has become a part of everyday life for many in Hong Kong, with residents resigned to paying extra for sought-after experiences. Insiders said the concert business had become opaque, with show organisers contractually obliged to reserve a large proportion of tickets for sponsors and commercial partners. Tickets reserved for public sale were swept up by scalpers using bots, leaving fans in despair without ever making it to the ticketing page, they said. But shortly after performances were listed as sold out, fans would see stacks of tickets being advertised on social media at exorbitant prices, leaving them to wonder where all the tickets had gone. The bigger question though is: how do you deal with a challenge where market forces, technology and limited regulation intersect? Ticket scalpers being arrested outside concert venues have made headlines in recent months, as authorities ramped up efforts to fill Hong Kong's concert calendar following the opening in March of the 50,000-seater Kai Tak Stadium, the city's largest venue. Big-name acts such as Coldplay and Mandopop stars Jay Chou and JJ Lin have performed at the stadium, while K-pop girl group Blackpink and GEM's coming shows are sold out. Under the Places of Public Entertainment Ordinance, it is an offence for any person to sell, offer for sale, or solicit the purchase of tickets at a price exceeding the amount fixed by the organiser at public entertainment venues. Offenders are liable to a fine of HK$2,000. Mike Ko Lep-kei, CEO and co-founder of event platform Timable, said that scalping had escalated with the opening of the stadium, affecting not only local fans but also those who had travelled from outside Hong Kong to watch big acts. Ko, who is in his forties and has worked in the entertainment industry for more than a decade, said ticket resellers were mainly divided into two types. The first was a small group of people who had established relationships with concert organisers to get tickets meant for internal distribution. People who programmed bots to sweep up tickets on platforms during public sales made up the second group. Ko said these 'officially endorsed resellers' would help concert organisers ensure their shows sold well and price the tickets according to demand in the resale market. Ko said that while tickets being sold at exorbitant prices often made headlines, resellers also suffered losses if demand for a concert was poor as they had to swallow the costs. 'They earn so much usually, so they also have to help concert organisers clear the inventory, because officially, organisers cannot offer discounted tickets,' he said. 'The resellers function as a proxy during downtimes and offer huge discounts to ensure enough members of the audience show up. 'But many organisers will not reveal these details due to non-disclosure agreements signed.' An industry insider agreed, saying that most of the time, organisers had to reserve up to 60 per cent of concert tickets for their sponsors' internal distribution or sales through other channels as part of their contract. For major concerts, most of the sponsors are insurance companies, credit card firms or banks, which tempt fans to buy financial products in exchange for a pair of tickets. 'Even before ticket sales open to the public, some parties with close ties to the organisers will already have placed orders on how many tickets they want reserved for them,' the source said. Battling the bots For public sales, ticketing platforms would be flooded by 'tens of thousands of bots' trying to enter their website at the same time, with popular shows held at Kai Tak Stadium bearing the brunt of large-scale attacks, the insiders said. Platforms blacklist the IP addresses of such bots and block them, only to have resellers switch them to get around the blocks, requiring time and resources to fight them off. On top of commercial partnerships making the distribution of concert tickets an opaque business, Ko said scalping was severe as concerts held in Hong Kong not only served the local audience but also a 1.4 billion-strong market in mainland China. 'No matter how many shows they put on, there is demand from among 1.4 billion people. It is commercially beneficial because concert tickets will always be bought, but organisers don't care that Hongkongers are unable to get in,' he said. In 2019, the Leisure and Cultural Services Department announced that organisers of concerts with more than four shows at the Hong Kong Coliseum and Queen Elizabeth Stadium, venues it operated, must limit internal and priority sales to no more than 70 per cent, leaving only 30 per cent for public sales. In response to queries from the Post, the department said its upgraded Urbtix ticketing system could accommodate up to 20,000 users, up from 2,000 in 2022, and could scale up to 100,000 if needed on the first day of sales for popular events. The system was also equipped with security provisions and multilayered settings and programmes to prevent ticket purchases by bots, a department spokesman said. 'Besides, [the department] encourages organisers to increase the ratio of tickets for public sale. A number of presenters of events at the Hong Kong Coliseum offered tickets for public sale at a ratio higher than 50 per cent,' he said. In comparison, Ticketmaster, one of the world's largest ticket marketplaces, was ready to handle 3.5 million Taylor Swift fans who had registered for the presale of her 'Eras Tour' in 2022 at the same time. Despite being able to 'manage huge volumes on the platform historically', the website still crashed after 'a staggering number of bot attacks' and other fans drove 'unprecedented traffic' to it, resulting in 3.5 billion total system requests, which was four times its previous peak, it said. Secretary for Culture, Sports and Tourism Rosanna Law Shuk-pui said her bureau had met several major concert organisers to understand their perspectives but shows were commercial activities and 'need to be financially viable' while large-scale productions required a certain level of sponsorship. 'It is not something government action can easily change. As long as it's not illegal, the government's hand should not be too far-reaching as Hong Kong is a free market,' she said. While venues managed by the government have to follow the guidelines, private locations, such as the newly opened Kai Tak Sports Park and Asia-World Expo, home to Hong Kong's largest indoor concert venue before Kai Tak Stadium opened, can decide their own hire terms. In response to queries by the Post, AsiaWorld-Expo said it had consistently asked event organisers to allocate 50 per cent or more of tickets for public sale at public ticketed events. 'The execution of ticketing arrangements, including allocations and sales channels, is managed by organisers and their appointed ticketing agents,' it said. Booming market Kai Tak Sports Park said that, like other commercially operated venues, ticketing arrangements were primarily managed by event organisers and that it encouraged them to increase the ratio of public sale tickets where possible. 'We noticed that organisers have allocated a comparatively sizeable portion of tickets for public sales and are pleased that public access tickets have generally been available, either as individual tickets or in package deals,' it said. 'Additionally, fans often have the opportunity to preregister for presales, and these have also been heavily used also.' Ko of Timable said that holding up tickets for sponsors was not unique to Hong Kong, but elsewhere the distribution of internal tickets was more transparent and smaller in scale. The global secondary ticketing market is a booming yet contentious industry, estimated to be worth US$28.2 billion in 2024 and projected to reach US$73.44 billion by 2033, according to a report by research firm Global Growth Insights. Platforms like StubHub, Viagogo and Ticketmaster facilitate resales, profiting from fees of 10 to 25 per cent charged to both buyers and sellers, ensuring stable revenue regardless of price fluctuations, according to the report. The Asia-Pacific region is the fastest-growing market, with ticket resale transactions up by 50 per cent in the past year, driven by expanding concert and festival scenes. South Korea's K-pop market alone accounts for 30 per cent of all secondary resales in the region, while Chinese and Indian fans increasingly travel for international events. Taiwan has significantly tightened its anti-scalping laws. As of May, the maximum penalty for reselling entertainment tickets through online and offline methods for profit increased from NT$18,000 to NT$30,000 (US$1,000). Under the 2023 amended Cultural and Creative Industries Act, reselling cultural event tickets above face value incurs fines of 10 to 50 times the original price. Large-scale scalping using bots can lead to three years in prison and a fine of up to NT$3 million. Japan's 2019 anti-scalping law prohibits online commercial resales above face value and acquiring tickets for illegal resale, with violators facing up to one year in prison or a 1 million yen (US$6,780) fine and potential entry denial for buyers. Ticket brokering is banned in the streets and other public places under local ordinances. Individual states in Australia have anti-scalping legislation where touts can only sell tickets for 10 per cent more than their original sale price across all venues. In Victoria, advertisements must also include the original price, intended resale price and seating information. Duncan Chiu, lawmaker for the innovation and technology sector, said Hong Kong could take reference from Australian laws, which target high-demand events, to strengthen enforcement and crack down on scalpers. 'But penalising consumers would not be useful, because those who bought resale tickets would not out themselves to authorities, since they really want to attend the event,' he said. Chiu added that while real-name verification was a frequently proposed solution, implementing it at the 50,000-seat Kai Tak Stadium could pose logistical challenges. 'Reselling should not be banned outright as there should be flexibility for those with last-minute plans. Having too strict purchasing procedures like requiring ID numbers or checking passports would also complicate matters for tourists,' he said. Chiu pointed to the Rugby Sevens app as a positive example, as it allowed users to transfer tickets a maximum of three times while tracing the path of the transactions, with accounts registered using verified phone numbers. Top-down approach Concerts by Hong Kong boy band Mirror in 2022 required real-name registration for publicly sold tickets after fans complained that the reselling situation had got out of hand, with scalpers demanding up to HK$400,000 a seat. Ko said a top-down approach was needed as a solution since it is not profitable for organisers to voluntarily regulate themselves. For starters, authorities could require organisers to reserve 10 per cent of publicly sold tickets for real-name verification. He cited Cantopop singer Terence Lam Ka-him's coming 'White Summer' series of eight concerts this month as a positive example of organisers trying to protect fans. Lam announced that 38,000 tickets meant for the public at the 12,500-seat Coliseum would be sold through a ballot. Applicants registered with their full name, verified phone numbers and payment details on Urbtix beforehand, and if selected, could only buy a maximum of two tickets. Concert director Alex Fung Yee-pak revealed that around 180,000 people had registered for the lucky draw. Fung said he hoped the ballot would weed out scalpers' accounts by requiring a verified phone number and credit card details. 'The response has been positive and fans were able to buy tickets through this method,' he told the Post. Fung said they tried to diversify the distribution of tickets to ensure as few as possible would be snapped up by scalpers during public sales. 'Forty per cent of tickets are available for public sales, while the remaining tickets will be distributed to partnering companies or sponsors to sell these tickets to their members through their own means,' he said. 'If we put all our eggs in one basket, scalpers could potentially wipe out the tickets and audiences would have no choice, so we hope to distribute the tickets through different channels.' Fung said scalping in Hong Kong was at a 'white heat', as ticket prices were relatively low and most singers held multiple shows, leaving much room for touts to make a profit. 'For example, a ticket costs HK$1,000 ... but scalpers can resell it for HK$2,000 and fully bag the profit,' he said. 'Profits will go into researching new technology and finding new ways to circumvent any detection on the platforms so they can sweep up more tickets.' Ko said the issue with scalpers was that no one truly knew how much they were earning from ticket sales, given the opacity of the industry. While some fan clubs elsewhere had started campaigns to boycott scalpers, Ko said Hongkongers would always show demand for resold tickets despite the price. Rather than banning commercial reselling, regulating and taxing the practice could be a solution just as authorities did during the property boom, Ko said. 'For example, if I earn HK$100 from reselling, HK$20 could go to the government, and the profit could be split with other stakeholders,' he said. If authorities did not act to regulate the situation, Hong Kong's reselling phenomenon would ultimately be corrupted to the core, Ko warned. 'It will be impossible to watch any shows at the original price any more, and audiences will be left in despair,' he said. - SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST
Hype Malaysia
11 hours ago
- Hype Malaysia
5 Must-Watch K-Variety Shows Hitting Disney+ Hotstar Starting 22nd August
With Korean food, music, dramas and celebrities continuing to rank amongst some of the world's most talked about pop cultural references, Disney+ Hotstar is helping viewers get their daily dose of Korea with five new weekly Korean variety shows launching from Friday to Tuesday starting 22nd August. Covering a range of themes from speed dating and food challenges to fitness, celebrity shopping habits and more, the upcoming mid-form variety shows with about 25 minutes run time each, are sure to more than satisfy viewers' Korea cravings. Anchovy Physical Camp Released every Friday starting 22nd August, this upcoming variety series sees some of Korea's less active celebrities use nothing but grit and their complete lack of physical prowess to compete in a series of fun fitness challenges. 60 Minutes To Love Released every Saturday starting 23rd August, this series follows Running Man star Ji Yeeun on her quest to find love. Throughout the 20-episode series, Ji Yeeun will go on 60-minute speed dates with men of all types and personalities in a bid to find her one true love. Belly Showdown Released every Sunday starting 24th August, this upcoming series sees six personalities compete in a high-calorie comedic food challenge, using their unstoppable appetites to beat the competition. YOO Got A Minute? Released every Monday starting 25th August, this series will be split into two parts. For the first 10 weeks Yoo Byungjae's popular Why Did I Buy It series returns as You Bought What?! a variety series that examines celebrities' bizarre spending habits. From week 11-20 the series will pivot to The Quiet Interview, a hilarious concept where interviewees struggle to keep a straight face during a series of bizarre interviews with only one rule – if you laugh the interview's over! Chef's Go-To Released every Tuesday starting 26th August, take a trip off the eaten path with Korea's famous chefs to explore some of their favourite back-alley eateries and hidden delights – all with the goal of helping you find your next unforgettable meal. Each with 20 episodes until the year end, the upcoming debut of these five variety shows is the latest in a series of exceptional Korean content releases to debut on Disney+ Hotstar in recent years. In 2025 alone, viewers have immersed themselves in a world of mystery and murder with the year's most watched Disney+ Hotstar Korean series Nine Puzzles; scrubbed in and gone under the scalpel with Hyper Knife; and explored treachery and treasure in '70s Korea with Low Life. Get your daily dose of K-Variety starting 22nd August on Disney+ Hotstar!
Borneo Post
18 hours ago
- Borneo Post
Family fun and friendly competition at Kuching Festival Fishing Competition
Wee (third rght) and others at the launch of the fishing competition. KUCHING (Aug 9): The Kuching Festival Fishing Competition drew 150 participants this year, meeting the target set by organiser Kuching South City Council (MBKS). Kuching South mayor Dato Wee Hong Seng described the event as more of a family outing than a competition, with participants arriving alongside their loved ones to enjoy a day by the water. People from all walks of life gathered around the man-made lake at Kuching Park, next to the MBKS Complex, for the event, which offered 23 prizes, including RM2,500 in cash for the champion. Wee said the fishing competition, held in conjunction with the annual Kuching Festival, not only promotes social interaction and integration but also helps MBKS manage the overpopulation of fish in the lake. According to him, the fish population increases rapidly because park visitors frequently feed them. 'The fishing competition is meant for everyone to take part in,' he said. 'We have lined up several activities for this year's city day celebration and, apart from this fishing competition, we also have a pickleball competition, cosplay competition, and a K-pop event.' Wee added that MBKS aims to shape the Kuching Festival to match current trends and demands. 'Not only are we keeping some traditions, but we also explore new things. We need to offer programmes that meet the people's needs,' he said. The mayor expressed hope that more people would take part in festival activities, in line with MBKS' mission to preserve a healthy and liveable city. He also extended his appreciation to the public for their cooperation and continued support for the council's initiatives. community fishing competition Kuching Festival Wee Hong Seng
