South Korean police confirmed that the ＂Produce 101＂ series of talent shows were all fraudulent.
[Text/Observer Network Ruan Jiaqi]
Idol artists are constantly changing into new South Korea, and it has become the dream of countless trainees to debut in the well-known talent show "Produce 101", which once created super-popular groups such as IOI and WANNAONE.
But now the "101 Series" has become a street rat-according to Yonhap News Agency, the South Korean police confirmed today (14th) that since the first season draft held in 2016, the whole series of "Produce 101" has been faked in all four seasons.
An Jun Ying, the director of the program, and Jin Rongfan, the producer, who were arrested on the 5th, were handed over to the prosecution for review and prosecution today. In addition, eight other people involved in the case were put on file for investigation.
In the third season, the women’s group IZ*ONE and the men’s group X1, which just debuted in the fourth season, have also stopped their work schedules due to the "fraud scandal", unable to board the singing program, and lost many advertising endorsements.
Faced with the request of the members of these two groups to dissolve their respective original societies, CJ E&M, a brokerage company, said that the results to be investigated would be released for further discussion. However, it has been revealed that some members are currently emotional and ask for dissolution.
The third season of "Produce 101" debuted in the Japanese-Korean cooperative women’s group.IZ*ONE from official website.
According to Yonhap News Agency’s report on 14th, An Jun Ying, director of the Korean idol talent show "Produce 101" and Jin Rongfan, the producer, were handed over to the prosecution for review and prosecution today after being arrested by the court on 5th for allegedly manipulating the voting results in a black box.
An Junying and others are suspected of operating behind the scenes in the live contest of the first to fourth seasons of the program, fabricating the voting results of the audience’s paid SMS and selecting specific trainees.
At present, An Junying has confessed to the police that she tampered with the player rankings in the third and fourth seasons. The police also revealed that they have mastered the situation that the production team and some trainees’ brokerage companies manipulated the ranking of contestants.
After investigation, An Junying has been entertained by many performing arts brokerage companies in entertainment places for many times since last year, and the total amount of bribes involved has reached tens of millions of won (about 100,000 to 500,000 yuan).
The police believe that there are black-box operations in the whole four seasons of the program. In addition to the creators, more than 10 people, including personnel of performing arts brokerage companies and CJ entertainment media executives of Mnet channel operators, have also been put on file for investigation. Among them, two people related to the planning company made a complaint.
The publication of the "full series of fraud scandals" not only cast a shadow over IOI and WANNA ONE (both of which have been dissolved due to their activities) in the first two seasons;
the year of 2016IOI debuted in the first season.
Debuted in the second quarter of 2017WANNA ONE
This has dealt a devastating blow to the future careers of IZ*ONE and X1, who are active in Korean music.
According to South Korea’s East Asia Daily, IZ*ONE, which was originally scheduled to release its first regular album on the 11th of this month, was urgently cancelled, and the album release plan was postponed. Not only could it not be put on the singing programs of SBS, KBS and MBC, but all the programs on the new album would also be cut to promote it.
Publicity photos of the new album BLOOM*IZ