On November 25th, 2023, Asian Superstar Group was launched in TVB and Youku International. In the first feature film, banana entertainment trainees Bai Ziyi, Wu Xuanye and Yang Chuanzhuo made the first appearance of the TRAINEE18 team, bringing a wonderful debut, and even showed off the "corporate culture" in the program to send bananas to each tutor. This is the banana entertainment company’s return to idol competition to develop programs after two years.
During these two years, banana entertainment has undergone major industrial and commercial changes. On November 2, 2021, Wang Sicong resigned as the chairman, and Ma Wenduo took over as the chairman.
According to the data, Banana Entertainment was established in November 2017. It is the first world-class entertainment brokerage company to sign Korean artists. It has signed many overseas artists such as T-ARA, EXID and Meng Jia, and maintained in-depth cooperation with many head entertainment brokerage companies such as SM and YG in Korea. The cooperation covers trainee recruitment, song production, artist performance and business. Since 2018, Banana Entertainment has delivered a batch of outstanding trainees for idol variety shows such as Idol Trainee, Youth with You, Creation 101 and Youth with You 3. Its head artists Evan, Azora Chin and Fu Jing all made their debut in idol variety show mode.
Since 2021, the idol industry has ushered in a cold winter. Since then, banana entertainment has been transformed by the wind under the leadership of the new chairman Ma Wenduo. It is no longer limited to cultivating singing and dancing artists, but also chooses to sign potential actors, online celebrity anchors, rappers and so on. In addition to the original brokerage, music, performance and other affairs, live broadcast, IP development and other business sectors have been added.
In 2022, Banana Entertainment launched MINT-X, the first hip-hop women’s group. When it debuted, it made many hot discussions on the Internet. Chairman Ma Wenduo responded in the program "For Our Glory": "If you choose to be a public figure, you must accept any voice. If someone scolds you, you will measure your own shortcomings and then improve. If someone likes it, you will put your favorite points to the maximum. Not every artist can be popular. An artist is a job. Some people must be outstanding and some people must be ordinary. What the company can do is to let everyone have a job as much as possible, instead of becoming popular or rich overnight. " This remark aroused the empathy of many related practitioners in the industry.
In the same year, Ma Wenduo jointly produced Youku costume fantasy sweet pet drama "Childe Can’t Seek". Banana Entertainment’s artists Qiang Dongyu, Ji Yangliu and MINT-X group Xiao Junyan all participated in the ost singing in the drama. In the future, Ma Wenduo will continue to be involved in investment and production related to film and television and variety shows.
Banana Entertainment, as a world-class entertainment brokerage company, has not chosen to stagnate under the pressure of the domestic entertainment idol economy, but has been groping for new opportunities again and again. In the future, we also expect banana entertainment to unlock more brand-new business segments and continuously deliver fresh blood to the entertainment market.