
It may be true for Sistar or 4minute but Kara and T-ara were not from small companies. DSP used to be Big 3 during 1st generation making Kara the next Fin K.L, and T-ara was from Mnet with sunbae as big as SeeYa or Davichi.
Where are the small-mid-sized companies ? Cube and Starship ? Lol...Sure they are not Big 4 but they are really far from beeing small agencies. They are in Top 10 among Kpop companies and have already produced big names such as Hyuna, 4minute, Beast, Monsta X or Sistar. It's so funny how nowaday people think that outside of Big 4 there is only small agencies.
It's a little interesting to see how much harder it is currently for groups from non big 4 companies to succeed at almost the same rate as big 4 groups. Back in earlier generations, we had KARA, 4Minute, T-ara, Sistar, INFINITE, AOA, Lovelyz, Apink, etc, who competed almost equally with the big 3 groups for awards, wins, and all of that. Now it's pretty much only IVE, G-Idle, and ATEEZ who can even hold a candle to big 4 groups popularity.