By Park Moo-jong
Entering the second half of his single five-year term, President Moon Jae-in has vowed anew to mobilize every possible measure to enhance the level of fairness in all sectors of Korean society.
Then, what does fairness exactly mean? All the dictionaries define it in terms of justice: impartial and just treatment or behavior without favoritism or discrimination toward one side or another.
Paradoxically, Moon's prime goal implies that our society still lacks fairness in all walks of life, including in state affairs, and the battle against corruption and malpractices caused by unfair behavior has a long way to go.
Indeed, unfairness in this society is not something that started just yesterday.
Against this backdrop, a sort of "payola" scandal is rocking the K-pop industry. The term, payola, is a combination of "pay" and "ola," a common suffix of product names or brands in the 1930s such as Victrola, trademark of a phonograph, and Motorola.
The payola scandal of the 1930s involved a notorious U.S. disc jockey who plugged particular songs on his radio show in return for payoffs.
The latest "Korean payola scandal" features unfair competition in the high-profile fan-vote audition show, "Produce X 101," of Mnet, a leading K-pop-oriented TV music channel owned by entertainment giant CJ ENM of the CJ Group.
As of Tuesday, more than 10 officials of the music channel and talent agencies have been booked by police with the Mnet director and the chief producer of the reality show taken into custody. The two have been detained on suspicion of having fixed the final fan-vote result in favor of certain contenders in return for receiving various favors, allegedly including payoffs from the agencies that fielded candidates to the audition.
Starting 10 years ago, music audition programs have been thriving, seemingly at first giving fair opportunities to would-be singers and satisfying viewers' desire to see talented novices become stars overnight, apparently influenced by the success of foreign talent shows like "Got Talent" and "X Factor" in the U.S., Britain and elsewhere across the world.
In fact, "America's Got Talent" created in 2006 by British producer and head of the show's panel of judges, Simon Cowell, produced many stars such as the then 10-year-old Jackie Evancho in 2010.
How about "Britain's Got Talent" that started one year later in 2007 made cellphone salesman Paul Potts an international tenor in the inaugural season and housewife Susan Boyle a top class crossover singer in 2009. Many music lovers must remember their performances in South Korea. One Direction, an English-Irish boy band, is also a product of Britain's X Factor.
South Korea also introduced "Korea's Got Talent" in 2011 on tvN, a cable network, but it survived for only two seasons.
What's the difference between the successful series in other countries and South Korea's failed attempt?
Over the past decade, literally numerous audition programs were created one after another and discontinued one after another mainly due to the low viewing rates and the moral hazard of the TV firms and their producers who were dying to raise the viewing rates of their shows. Of course, high rates ensure big profits.
It is no wonder that such programs lack fairness in the competition. The "Produce X101" makes a symbolic case of payola.
In order to profiteer from the audition programs, Mnet allegedly abused the K-pop industry, even setting up its own management agency, and colluded with talent agencies that fielded their trainees to the show to rig the vote returns. How many innocent participants were discouraged and were left victims of the fraud?
What made the voters outraged was that a vote cost 100 won and Mnet pocketed the money. It is needless to say that the music channel should return the money to all voters as soon as those involved are found guilty.
At the successful "Britain's Got Talent" for instance, people of any age can audition for the televised competition with whatever talent they wish to show to win the votes of a panel of four judges. But scandalous Mnet's show auditions only trainees of talent agencies, depending on the votes of fans.
Ballot rigging is one of the gravest crimes that spoils fair competition and democracy eventually. The reason why many people are so angry about the "Cho Kuk" scandal is that the former justice minister's daughter entered a top university allegedly through unfair means arranged by her parents against justice.
Law enforcement authorities have to get to the bottom of the cable channel's fraudulent case in order to live up to Moon's political goal of building a fair society.
Park Moo-jong (emjei29@gmail.com) is a standing adviser of The Korea Times. He served as the president-publisher of the nation's first English daily newspaper from 2004 to 2014 after working as a reporter since 1974.
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Then, what does fairness exactly mean? All the dictionaries define it in terms of justice: impartial and just treatment or behavior without favoritism or discrimination toward one side or another.
Paradoxically, Moon's prime goal implies that our society still lacks fairness in all walks of life, including in state affairs, and the battle against corruption and malpractices caused by unfair behavior has a long way to go.
Indeed, unfairness in this society is not something that started just yesterday.
Against this backdrop, a sort of "payola" scandal is rocking the K-pop industry. The term, payola, is a combination of "pay" and "ola," a common suffix of product names or brands in the 1930s such as Victrola, trademark of a phonograph, and Motorola.
The payola scandal of the 1930s involved a notorious U.S. disc jockey who plugged particular songs on his radio show in return for payoffs.
The latest "Korean payola scandal" features unfair competition in the high-profile fan-vote audition show, "Produce X 101," of Mnet, a leading K-pop-oriented TV music channel owned by entertainment giant CJ ENM of the CJ Group.
As of Tuesday, more than 10 officials of the music channel and talent agencies have been booked by police with the Mnet director and the chief producer of the reality show taken into custody. The two have been detained on suspicion of having fixed the final fan-vote result in favor of certain contenders in return for receiving various favors, allegedly including payoffs from the agencies that fielded candidates to the audition.
Starting 10 years ago, music audition programs have been thriving, seemingly at first giving fair opportunities to would-be singers and satisfying viewers' desire to see talented novices become stars overnight, apparently influenced by the success of foreign talent shows like "Got Talent" and "X Factor" in the U.S., Britain and elsewhere across the world.
In fact, "America's Got Talent" created in 2006 by British producer and head of the show's panel of judges, Simon Cowell, produced many stars such as the then 10-year-old Jackie Evancho in 2010.
How about "Britain's Got Talent" that started one year later in 2007 made cellphone salesman Paul Potts an international tenor in the inaugural season and housewife Susan Boyle a top class crossover singer in 2009. Many music lovers must remember their performances in South Korea. One Direction, an English-Irish boy band, is also a product of Britain's X Factor.
South Korea also introduced "Korea's Got Talent" in 2011 on tvN, a cable network, but it survived for only two seasons.
What's the difference between the successful series in other countries and South Korea's failed attempt?
Over the past decade, literally numerous audition programs were created one after another and discontinued one after another mainly due to the low viewing rates and the moral hazard of the TV firms and their producers who were dying to raise the viewing rates of their shows. Of course, high rates ensure big profits.
It is no wonder that such programs lack fairness in the competition. The "Produce X101" makes a symbolic case of payola.
In order to profiteer from the audition programs, Mnet allegedly abused the K-pop industry, even setting up its own management agency, and colluded with talent agencies that fielded their trainees to the show to rig the vote returns. How many innocent participants were discouraged and were left victims of the fraud?
What made the voters outraged was that a vote cost 100 won and Mnet pocketed the money. It is needless to say that the music channel should return the money to all voters as soon as those involved are found guilty.
At the successful "Britain's Got Talent" for instance, people of any age can audition for the televised competition with whatever talent they wish to show to win the votes of a panel of four judges. But scandalous Mnet's show auditions only trainees of talent agencies, depending on the votes of fans.
Ballot rigging is one of the gravest crimes that spoils fair competition and democracy eventually. The reason why many people are so angry about the "Cho Kuk" scandal is that the former justice minister's daughter entered a top university allegedly through unfair means arranged by her parents against justice.
Law enforcement authorities have to get to the bottom of the cable channel's fraudulent case in order to live up to Moon's political goal of building a fair society.
Park Moo-jong (emjei29@gmail.com) is a standing adviser of The Korea Times. He served as the president-publisher of the nation's first English daily newspaper from 2004 to 2014 after working as a reporter since 1974.
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