Bang PD is considered as the father of "BTS" - which makes his and the members' lives and careers seem to change completely. But perhaps few people know about the hidden reason why the founder of Big Hit and also the creator of BTS - Bang PDnim chose the members of BTS and formed the group.

It is also an interesting story about how BTS members became trainees of Big Hit Entertainment. From the story of finding the members of BTS, it can be seen how far Bang PD has seen their inner potential and vision!

Bang PD and BTS members coming together seemed to be the perfect arrangement as many of them had received offers from other big entertainment agencies. BTS debuted at a time when Big Hit Music still had a huge debt to both Bang PD and the members was a story of "all or nothing".

Bang Si Hyuk's view and belief in the members prove that he won outright in this bet. In an interview, Bang Si Hyuk once shared the story of BTS's success from first days.

He described how BTS went from one member to seven and expressed his point of view from a businessman's point of view. According to Bang PDnim's share, BTS started with RM.

He shared,"One of our producers, Pdogg, brought RM’s demo tape to me and said, “This is what the young kids are into". RM was 15 years old at the time and Bang PD was really surprised by his talent. And the next part of the story between Bang Si Hyuk and RM is: "I signed him immediately".

He also added, “I had considered putting together a hip-hop crew, not an idol group. But when I considered the business context, I thought a K-pop idol model made more sense". However, as BTS has shown since day one, they are an idol group with hip-hop essence.

In the process of searching for the last members of BTS, there are many potential trainees vying with each other. However, many people who had the opportunity to become BTS left because they wanted to debut as hip-hop artists, not idols.

At that time, only rappers RM, Suga, and j-hope remained at the company. Bang PD shared, "Because many trainees wanted to pursue hip-hop and didn’t want to be in an idol band, they left. At that time RM, Suga, and j-hope stayed back, and they remain BTS’s musical pillars".

And after that, Bang PD looked for 4 more main vocal members of the group, Jin, Jimin, V, and Jungkook. He chose them in the first place because of their "idol-like" appearance. Bang PD said, "From there, through auditions we discovered and added members that had more of an idol-like looks to the group."

Then, when enough members gathered, Bang PD decided to make BTS more of an idol group than a hip-hop group. This comes from a business need because according to Bang Si Hyuk, idol groups have higher sales, a larger fan base, and more choices for them.

Furthermore, this was completely in line with the practice of the K-pop music industry at the time: "At the time that I started my company, physical album sales were abruptly going down and digital sales were not coming up to compensate. But K-Pop idol groups had an advantage, in that they had many opportunities to diversify revenue streams and their fans were extremely pαssionate, allowing concerts to compensate for the dropped album sales."

Bang Si Hyuk has also witnessed live performances and he sees that idol groups are a way to save the music industry. He said: "This was also a time when many around the world were saying the only replacement for the demolished musical industry is live performances. If a performance-based model were to be created in South ḳöŕệä, I thought, it would [still have to] be a K-pop idol group."

In the end, Bang Si Hyuk's vision and business savvy paid off! BTS not only promotes the electronic music industry but also makes K-Pop a global music trend. And so far, BTS is more than an idol group!