How we put a Korean band on three major American TV shows in seven days.
A lot of you ask me, what was my job exactly as the U.S. partner to BTS / Big Hit. It's a really great question. The way I work, I never want the spotlight on me — I want it on the artists. But the answer to that question reveals how a small team broke open the entire American TV ecosystem for a Korean act, and so it's worth telling.
It was the night of the 2017 American Music Awards. RM turned to me. He asked: "Eshy, I know you worked really hard — but how do you think this happened? Us being with all these huge artists on the same show?"
This is for him, and for everyone who has asked me the same question since.
The strategy: point everything at one moment.
My company had built up a track record working with artists on PR, A&R, and U.S. campaigns. Submissions came in through the website. One of them was from a smaller Korean label representing a band almost no one in America knew. I did some research — and what I saw stopped me. The music videos were among the most beautiful work I had ever seen. The song "Save Me" got me. The vision came quickly: this band could cross over here.
The first thing I did was define what BTS was, in a sentence anyone in American media could repeat. The mission we settled on: to bring East and West together through music. Every conversation I had after that — with TV bookers, with radio programmers, with artist managers — started from that idea. Not "please book a Korean band." Not "please give a foreign act a shot." But: "Here is a movement happening in real time, and you have a chance to be part of the conversation that brings it here."
A campaign needs a pinnacle. A single peak moment where everything you've been building converges, where people start seeing you in multiple places at once and they start to take you home with them. For BTS, I picked the AMAs.
Getting them in the door.
First I had to get BTS back on a plane to America. Their label, like most Korean labels at the time, was focused on Asia — Korea, Japan, the markets right next door. Bringing a 7-member group plus stylists, hair, makeup, dancers, label staff, and management across the Pacific is a logistical mountain, and they needed a real reason.
The reason I found was the Billboard Social 50 chart. The ARMY had been moving so hard online — tweets, retweets, every form of activity that the chart tracks — that BTS was about to win the social 50 award at the Billboard Music Awards. We made sure BTS was registered properly with every account needed for the chart to count their fan activity. The nomination came through. That was my cue.
I started talking with my friends at Dick Clark Productions — specifically Marc Schimmel and Mike Mahan. The Social 50 had never been televised before; Justin Bieber had been winning it year after year off-camera. I told them: this one's historic, you need to bring them here, and you need to put it on television.
Marc and Mike got more and more receptive as I kept them updated with the stats. Culturally, BTS wouldn't come without an official invitation, so we built that together. I lined up the hotel rooms. Mr. Bang approved the trip. When they finally agreed to have the band present an award, I pushed for more — and when it looked like BTS was actually going to win, I got a promise that the trophy moment would be televised for the first time. ARMY filled the venue, louder than any other fandom for any other artist that night. We worked the red carpet and got the band interviewed at almost every stop, which was hard to do when most outlets had never even heard their name.
The AMA performance.
From there I went after the AMAs themselves. I pulled the TV ratings from the BBMA and showed my ABC friends the audience peaks. Conversations about song options started. Possible collabs with U.S. artists came up. The best of all worlds happened — we secured BTS performing "DNA" in Korean on the American Music Awards stage. That moment is my career high. That's the pinnacle I had been pointing everything toward.
A pinnacle isn't a single show, though. It's a window. The week of the AMA was an opportunity to push them everywhere and make it into a pivotal moment in BTS's career. So I started booking around it.
Three major TV shows in one week.
First was Jimmy Kimmel. That booking turned into a Summer Stage — a mini performance of five songs for the fans, two of which would air and one or more going to YouTube. After Kimmel I went for Ellen, which was at its absolute peak then. I couldn't get a single response from her booker. So I emailed everyone on her staff about the band — every name I could find. This is a "don't try this at home" kind of move, but it was the action I needed to take to exhaust every option. Shortly after, the booker called me, upset. "Why did you do that?" she asked. I smiled and said, "Sorry, I just wanted to make sure everyone was aware." She paused. Then she said: "Okay, okay, I'll book you. But don't do it again."
Two of the biggest TV shows in the U.S. booked. More than anyone expected. Everyone around me was happy. But I kept thinking, let's do more — so I kept hitting my friends at James Corden's Late Late Show until we finally locked that down too.
If you work in PR you know this: booking three major American TV shows for one act in one week is almost impossible. The result shocked me. It also made me realize how much weight the passion and the belief I had been carrying had actually been able to move.
But that wasn't all. We also booked New Year's Rockin' Eve with Ryan Seacrest. For anyone who doesn't know — that's the show most of America watches on New Year's Eve, broadcast live from Times Square and other locations across the country, where the ball drop in NYC marks the new year. How about performing "Mic Drop" right after the ball drops? Let's do it. And so we did.
Press lined up alongside it: E!, ET, Access Hollywood, KTLA, Rolling Stone, Billboard, KIIS FM 102.7 — the list kept growing. In every single conversation I had with media that week, I came back to two ideas. "It's like the Beatles coming to the U.S." And: "BTS connects East and West, and people across the world as one — all walks of life, all ages, all ethnicities, all beliefs, all lifestyles, coming together."
The phone call from Korea.
Then, a few days before the band was scheduled to land, I got a phone call from Korea. Cancel all the TV shows. Cancel the press. Focus only on the AMA.
What do you do at that moment? Do you let go of everything you've been building? Months of conversations. Three of the biggest shows in American television booked. New Year's Rockin' Eve already set. Press lined up.
I knew it would be a mistake. A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that would never come back if we walked away from it. I was willing to risk it all. I told them: No. I'm not doing that. I know the U.S. market and I know what this week means. After this week, BTS will become a household name. They will be the biggest band coming out of Korea, and most likely one of the biggest bands in the world. I'd rather get fired than let any of this go to waste.
Mr. Bang eventually allowed me to continue with the plan. This is why I appreciate that man so much — he had the vision to see what was coming and the courage to trust me with the U.S. market. I had told him I would deliver. I had delivered. And then I had delivered more than even he believed was possible.
The arrival.
The day of the arrival was here. I knew ARMY would show up to the airport — they always do. I figured a few hundred fans. So I prepared airport security for thousands, to make sure the band would be safe, and because I knew press would be there to document the moment if it was the kind of moment worth documenting. Rolling Stone had cameras on hand for a day-of. iHeart was there. ET. Ellen. We had invited them all to witness how ARMY welcomes BTS to America. It was epic. It looked like a million dollars.
First stop after landing was James Corden's Late Late Show. I will never forget the game of flinch the boys played with him — the first K-pop band, I believe, to appear on that show. It was a packed week, and every place we went, they lit the room.
Jimmy Kimmel was pre-taped. Originally it was just the performance. That morning, Jimmy drove in and couldn't believe what he saw outside the studio. Fans everywhere. On the streets, in tents. He added a skit on the spot for a pre-show.
What I hadn't thought through is that in TV there are certain shows that have to air first over others. Ellen was one of them. When the Jimmy Kimmel skit aired for promotion, I got a call from Ellen's booker basically threatening to pull the show. I didn't sleep that night. I couldn't have this canceled. But I trusted the boys and the power they had. By morning, everything was fine, and the show went on as planned.
The night of the AMAs.
I saw the rehearsal. It was phenomenal. We sat in our seats watching the show, RM next to me — almost in disbelief that this was real. That they were playing this stage alongside every major artist in American pop at the time. He couldn't believe how loud the fans were cheering. He really thanked me for the work.
That was the moment he turned to me with the question I started this piece with. "Eshy, how do you think this happened?"
I told him then, and I'll say it again now: it happened because we believed it could. We pointed everything at one peak moment. We were creative when the answers were no. We refused to convince people; we tried to inspire them. We never broke our word, even when other people were ready to break it for us. And when the call came that would have undone all of it, we held the line.
Three major TV shows in one week. The AMAs. New Year's Rockin' Eve with Ryan Seacrest. Thirty press looks in a handful of days. "Mic Drop" with Steve Aoki and Desiigner hitting #28 on the Billboard Hot 100 — the first K-pop group ever to crack the top 40.
That's how I did it. That was my job.
Part 2 will cover Radio, Press, and Industry — the other three pillars of the campaign that turned BTS from an unknown act into a household name in the United States. Eshy Gazit is a Partner at Maverick Management and the founder of Intertwine Records.