OST Contract (1)
PD Shin Hye-yoon had known since the night before that Young-hoon was meeting with PD Lee Hyo-young.
Naturally, she was dying to find out what had come of it — but nobody had bothered to call her with the results. She couldn't just ring Young-hoon out of the blue and demand answers, and PD Lee Hyo-young was an intimidating man at the best of times, so asking him was entirely out of the question.
Which left, as always, the easiest target: her hometown oppa. She dialed Lee Jae-man.
"Hye-yoon? What brings you calling on a holiday?"
"Oppa, do you have any idea what kind of emergency my company is in right now? Crank-in is just around the corner, and I've got the production announcement to prepare, PPL contracts to chase down… I need to borrow a few extra pairs of hands like a cat's paws, and you think I get to actually rest on a holiday?"
"Ah… I had no idea it was that bad. Sorry."
"As long as you know. By the way, oppa — where are you right now?"
"At the office, keeping an eye on the girls' practice."
"Did you meet that junior PD you said Lee Hyo-young would introduce you to last night?"
"Yesterday? Oh — didn't I call you about how the meeting with Lee Hyo-young went? Honestly, I've been so forgetful lately."
"Oppa!! That meeting yesterday was critically important, and you're telling me you still haven't told me anything? Do you want me to boil you alive? And why hasn't Kim Young-hoon called about the results either?"
"Young-hoon? He's right here. Want me to hand him the phone?"
"What? He's there? Then tell him to stay put — no going anywhere. I'll be there in thirty minutes, and tell him I have something important to discuss. I'm leaving now!"
Hye-yoon drove like a woman whose eyebrows were on fire. She could count on picking up at least one or two speeding tickets as a bonus.
Exactly thirty minutes later, she walked through the door of Jae-man's office.
"You really did make it in thirty minutes? That eager to see Young-hoon, were you?"
"Spare me the commentary, oppa. I ran over here so fast I'm out of breath. Just give me a glass of water."
"Sure, one sec. But why the mad rush?"
"Obviously because I want to know what came out of your meeting with PD Lee Hyo-young yesterday. It's a matter of enormous importance for my company."
Young-hoon and Jae-man walked her through everything that had happened the night before, and Hye-yoon listened with delight, nodding along the whole way through.
"So to sum up: PD Jang Won-seok of Pleasant 2 PM has agreed to plug Love After Separation by airing two OST tracks on his show. 'A Loving Heart' on November 10th, 'After Farewell' ten days after that — and he told you to prepare one more song, just in case?"
"That's right. The premise is that lovers who broke up meet again and blossom into a beautiful love, or something like that."
"But isn't that already what the lyrics of 'A Loving Heart' are about? A sweet love song?"
"That's what I thought too, but they asked for a love song that properly blends the sense of loss at parting with the tender longing of reuniting. So it looks like I'll have to write one more song. Kim Young-hoon, that won't be a problem, will it?"
Young-hoon, who had been listening from the sidelines, jolted in shock. He hadn't heard a word about any of this.
"I'm sorry — do I look like a song vending machine to you? I'll need to think about it. I do have something I wrote a while back, but the lyrics are pretty rough. Give me about a week. …Wait, did I say something stupid while I was drunk last night?"
President Lee Jae-man stared at him for a moment with an expression of pure disbelief before speaking up.
"Hmm… Young-hoon, you don't remember yesterday? You really need to be more careful at drinking gatherings from now on. Anyway, even at the latest, the song has to be done by October 30th if we're going to hit PD Lee Hyo-young's delivery deadline at the end of November."
Hye-yoon's head began to throb. The production budget was already stretched thin, and now they had to add yet another OST to the pile.
"By the way, Hye-yoon — for a typical twenty-episode miniseries, how many OSTs are we talking about?"
"Usually four to six. But since Five Girls lacks name recognition, we allocated them two tracks and signed contracts with three top singers for the rest. And now I'm being asked to add one more on top of that, and my head is pounding. Honestly, the reason I came here today was to discuss the contract for those two OST songs with your company…"
At that, President Lee Jae-man smoothly took a step back from the table.
"Ah, is that so? Then discuss the contract with Young-hoon here. I drank way too much last night, so I'm going to get some rest. Work out the terms by the time I'm back from the sauna. An hour should do it, right?"
"What on earth are you talking about? The contract should be with you, oppa — you're the CEO of the agency. Why would I negotiate contract terms with Young-hoon, who knows nothing about any of this?"
"I've delegated full authority over the contract to Young-hoon, so don't look at me. Back in an hour."
The moment the words left his mouth, Jae-man shot to his feet and hurried out the door. Left alone with Hye-yoon, Young-hoon endured a long, awkward silence.
"Oppa… why on earth is he acting like that?"
"Who knows? Your guess is as good as mine…"
He had already agreed to hand the company over to Young-hoon, and since that fact had to stay secret, he had nothing he could reasonably say.
Bewildered as she was, Hye-yoon finally turned the conversation back on track.
"Well then, I suppose I have no choice but to discuss the OST contract with you, Young-hoon. A miniseries runs for roughly two to two and a half months. Because the window is so short, producers need maximum impact fast, so OSTs almost always go to top-tier singers."
"I see."
"For something like a weekend drama that airs over several months, rookie singers get far more OST opportunities. So for Love After Separation, we locked in three songs from top singers plus two from Five Girls — relatively unknown, poor things — for a total of five. Six, now, apparently. How lucky for us."
There was a distinct edge beneath the politeness.
"I truly apologize about that. Though I'm surprised a miniseries carries that many OSTs — I assumed it was one or two. So what kind of fees are we talking about per song?"
"Top singers command 100 to 200 million won per track; rookies or low-profile singers usually settle somewhere between 20 and 50 million."
"So we'd only get about 20 million per song. Three songs, 60 million total. That seems awfully low."
"That's the reality. To be honest, I received all three tracks from the other top singers before finalizing their contracts, and compared to your songs, Young-hoon, they're about as impressive as fireflies under the noonday sun. Without your music, even the great screenwriter Lee Na-yeon would have struggled to push past 20% in ratings."
"I couldn't care less what the other top singers charged. We're just starting out. All I need to know, PD Shin, is how much you want to sign with us for."
"This contract kept me up all night. Your OSTs are clearly the best — but the singers' low profile means we can't pay much, and that's the problem. So I came up with what I think is a clever solution: what if we structure it as a running-guarantee contract tied to the ratings? 20 million won per song as the base, plus alpha."
"Please explain it in detail so I can follow."
"When we sign with the network, we build in performance options — options based on viewership ratings. We set the baseline at 20%, with an additional 10 million won for every 1% above that. So if episode one pulls a 15%, the option pays nothing. But if the two-episode average comes out to 25%, we collect an extra 50 million. Of course, we don't expect clearing 20% to be easy — but your OSTs are so good that I'm confident we'll blow right past it."
"I follow, more or less. Then before we discuss the terms for us, please make your proposal."
"The biggest expenses in drama production are actor fees, the screenwriter's fee, and OST costs. Even for what you'd call a monster-hit drama, the outsourcing production company's profit runs about 50 million to 100 million won per episode. And as you know, Young-hoon — how many genuine blockbuster dramas get made in a year?"
"Sorry… to be honest, I don't really watch dramas, so I have no idea."
"Ten in a good year, five in a lean one. The network only covers 60 to 80 percent of production costs, so outsourcing companies are forced to lean hard on PPL just to break even. Say, for example, that Love After Separation averages a 25% rating — that leaves 1 billion won in surplus revenue for my company. So my proposal is 5% of that surplus as your option amount for the OSTs."
Young-hoon ran the numbers in his head.
"Then let me make sure I have this straight. Under 20% ratings, we get nothing. But on the happy assumption that, as you say, we land a 25% blockbuster — three songs comes to 150 million won. Did I get that right?"
"Wow, you calculate fast. Yes, exactly."
"And of course I'm grateful for your generous proposal, PD Shin. But as you're well aware, our side's circumstances aren't exactly rosy. President Lee Jae-man has barely scraped by, same with Five Girls, and Producer Yoo Sung-hoon — your cousin, no less — isn't doing much better. Options are, by design, conditions that are hard to hit, so I'll take them off the table. That leaves the base 60 million for the three OSTs. How are we supposed to divide that? Even President Lee alone would walk away with less than 10 million."
"Then please share your view on how we should proceed."
"High risk, high return, as they say. Consider it a prayer for this drama's success: let's settle on 20 million per song plus 7% of the surplus profit. That's only 60 million more, after all."
"Hold on — let me check with my CEO."
With Young-hoon's leave, Hye-yoon called CEO Joo Young-ki. Negotiations were clearly not going to be easy, because the call stretched on and on.
But Young-hoon was confident his proposal wouldn't face much resistance. The PD he'd met the night before, Lee Hyo-young, was already certain of a mega-hit — beyond a blockbuster — and PD Jang Won-seok's enthusiasm had only reinforced that conviction. That was precisely why Young-hoon could afford to bet on the option at all.
His own projection for the average rating was around 30%. At that level, the option amount would swell to 420 million won — over 150 million won in income per song. Enough, at least, to move the office and the dorms up to Seoul.
After more than twenty minutes on the phone with her CEO, Hye-in broke into a warm smile and spoke.
"We have a deal. The CEO had nothing but praise for your negotiating skills, Young-hoon."
"Haha, kind words even if they're empty ones — thank you. We've only just cleared one small hill, though. Now, one more question."
Young-hoon's winning hand was far from spent. In truth, the negotiation was only beginning.
"Ask away. I'll answer as fully as my knowledge allows."
"What's the situation with drama copyrights?"
"Excellent question. As things stand in Korea, all drama copyrights go to the broadcaster. Once we produce a show and hand it over, the network can bake it or boil it as it pleases — we hold no rights whatsoever. It's like a factory churning out products and selling them to consumers: nothing comes back to the company. The actors do benefit, mind you — commercials, fan meetings… they can monetize their fame in all sorts of ways."
"So it's safe to say the system is rigged against outsourcing production companies?"
"Absolutely! The production companies have fought hard to change these unjust terms, but so far there's no legal mechanism capable of reining in the tyranny of the all-powerful networks. An utterly suffocating reality."
Hye-yoon's voice rose with heat, as if the mere thought of it made her blood boil.