SM Entertainment Shuts Down SM Academy

The school where a lot of famous K-pop idols came from, closes down. Just recently, SM Entertainment announced their partnership with Universal Studios Japan.

Oct 26, 2013 01:48 PM BST

TAGㆍsm entertainment

Just recently, SM Entertainment announced their partnership with Universal Studios Japan. However, SM also has entirely closed down their SM Academy which stopped operations last August 31.

According to the representatives of Investment Bank, on October 21, SM has proceeded with closing down Starlight, an SM affiliate, which is in charge of operating the SM Academy.

Representative of SM  said, "We're closing the academy to make new preparations for the changes that the entertainment industry is going through. In order to increase our global competence, we're planning on creating a sort of global training center in the future."

Starlight was established in January of 2003 and was a company that pioneered in entertainment, which trains competitive entertainers globally. The courses they offered were composition, singing, acting, management, and more for aspiring entertainers.

Here are the stars that graduated in SM Academy:

Taeyeon (Girls' Generation)

YoonA (Girls' Generation)

Changmin (DBSK)

Siwon (Super Junior)

Kim Heechul (Super Junior)

Yesung (Super Junior)

Onew (SHINee)

Kai (EXO)

G.O. (MBLAQ)

Heo Ga Yoon (4minute)

Lee Sung Yeol (Infinite)

Raina (After School)

Go Ara

Kim Min Ji

Go Kyoung Pyo

Baek Ah Yeon

One reason of the shutdown of Starlight was when it stopped gaining net profits in 2005 and made deficits.

IB Representatives stated, "In the past, there were many cases in which people debuted after graduating from a major agency's entertainment academy. However, since the popularization of audition programs and publicized auditions, and an increase in opportunities for debut, the academies of major entertainment agencies have lost a lot of their value."

Alternatively, other entertainment companies are going into the academy business, like CNBlue's agency, FNC Entertainment has FNC Academy. They have a Hongdae and Gangnam branch, and is scheduled to open an academy in Daegu in June.

Another is, Polaris Entertainment, having artists like Kim Bum Soo, Rumblefish, Ivy, and Yang Dong Geun, started an academy business with CJ E&M. They have partnered and invested 50% for the company, starting the joint Polaris Mnet last year. Singer Kim Bum Soo is now the vice president of M Academy.

While, SidusHQ (iHQ) is also running the C.A.S.T. Acting Academy.

Tagㆍsm entertainment