2016 was when Mnet has produced a new and novel concept for a survival show. For the first time in Korean television history, a brand new K-pop girl group will be entirely picked and evaluated by the national audiences, giving them the title of "national producers." It was a brand new concept, which has not been tried by anyone ever, and boy did they turn this into a national and international sensation.
It even got to the point that Jessie J has given them a shoutout after an amazingly incredible performance of the hit song "Bang Bang" made waves all around the globe. The first season gave birth to the girl group IOI, who won a multitude of awards during their two-year run on the KPop scene. They gave us hits such as Dream Girls, Whatta Man, Very Very Very, and their final song Downpour.
Following the massive success of the first season, they tried another angle: this time, they aim to create a brand new Korean boy group by the time the show ends. This brought the Produce 101 craze to brand new heights, even getting Melon Music Awards nominations for their concept evaluation songs. The songs released online reigned the music charts across Korea for months, and this also gave way to NU'EST, one of the has-beens back then, to gain a resurgence of popularity, therefore earning them the nickname "icons of rebirth" and the "male EXID".
The second season gave birth to Wanna One, which became one of the most memorable and loved Korean boy groups of all time, even reaching the levels of EXO, BTS, and Seventeen in terms of global popularity. Korean advertisers gave them all the CFs they can get, from chicken brands, to skincare products, to outerwear and even school uniforms. Whatever Wanna One touched becomes gold -- it gets sold out in hours.
They also won a bunch of bonsangs and other awards, even winning the Daesang for Record of the Year in the 2018 Melon Music Awards. This proved how successful the Mnet business model is, so we also saw the different versions of the idol franchise -- China's Produce 101, Idol Producer, Youth with You, and even the Japanese version of Produce 101.
For the third season, Mnet has pushed the envelope even further -- and collaborated with Japan's insanely popular AKB48 and its sister groups -- to produce the third season, which has seen Japanese idols under the AKB48 system enter the competition along with Korean girl group trainees. As expected, it reached new heights for the show, and the eventual group IZ*ONE, composed of the Korean center Jang Wonyoung and the Japanese center Miyawaki Sakura.
Just like their older brothers and sisters, they gained a lot of popularity and awards around the world, and their fans didn't want this to end. However, their group disbanded earlier this year as they have finished the contracts.
For the new male season, Mnet has decided to scrap the rules altogether and create a new rule: aside from the 10 trainees to be voted by the public, there will be an X trainee -- this trainee has accumulated the highest number of votes throughout the course of the season. Of course, this was met with mixed reactions, but they still continued, anyway. As expected, they surpassed what the first three groups have done in terms of brand reputation, popularity, and ratings. X1 was the group that came out of this show, and they were massively popular all around the world.
However, this was where the issues began to surface. Right after the finale of the fourth season, viewers had called out the results, calling them rigged and predetermined -- and they have a reason to do so. A couple of fan favorites with steady rises to the top were suddenly nowhere to be found -- particularly Kim Minkyu (who is now an actor) and UP10TION's Lee Jinhyuk. This has reached to the point that the Seoul Metropolitan Police has issued seize orders on some K-Pop agencies such as Starship, TOP Media, and MBK.
Upon further investigation, it was revealed that Ahn Joonyoung -- the PD of the whole Produce 101 series -- has rigged the lists, kicked out the fan favorites due to mysterious reasons, and switched up spots to the finale, not only for X1 but for all the groups, from IOI to IZ*ONE.
They have also released a list of the trainees who got kicked out in favor of those in the final lineup, and fans are understandably outraged. This resulted to Ahn Joonyoung and other associates getting prison sentences due to fraud allegations, and X1 was ultimately disbanded after just a few months.
This has caused the public to lose their trust on Mnet and the idol survival program model. They realized whatever happens, it can still be rigged in favor of those who paid bigger than the others.
We all thought that Mnet would stop doing idol survival shows because of the negative impact -- until now.
Recently, MNet has introduced a new idol survival show entitled Girls Planet 999 -- with the aim to form a brand new girl group out of different girls from around the world. They have a promising lineup, with SNSD Tiffany and Wonder Girls' Sunmi headlining the show as mentors.
This has caused lots of reactions from the K-Pop community. Some have asked if this is Produce 101 in a lame disguise. Others have asked why Mnet cannot keep their hands off of idol survival shows. Still, there are others who are anticipating for this show and we all know what will happen -- just like what happened in the previous seasons.
Personally, I just think Mnet has to stop with the idol survival shows. They've had their share of ups and downs already and this should have ended with Produce X 101. Looks like Mnet just gave in to the lures of capitalism, and they just can't stop because the money keeps on rolling in.
I wish the best of luck to the girls joining the program and I hope they won't be having bad experiences just like some who joined the previous seasons.
