‘Billboard and Girl Groups - Who Broke Their Wings?’ Episode
Decision on Follow-up Broadcast Not Yet Made
The replay service of the episode covering the dispute between girl group Fifty Fifty and their agency, which was featured on SBS’s ‘Unanswered Questions’ (Geu-al), has been suspended.
On the 21st, the replay service for episode 1365 of ‘Unanswered Questions,’ titled ‘Billboard and Girl Groups - Who Broke the Wings?’ which was available on the SBS website and OTT platform Wavve, was halted. SBS has not issued any official statement regarding this matter.
The episode aired on August 19th, titled ‘Billboard and Girl Groups - Who Broke the Wings?,’ dealt with the exclusive contract dispute involving Fifty Fifty. The broadcast investigated the truth behind the contract dispute and the structural problems within the K-pop idol industry.
After the broadcast, ‘Unanswered Questions’ faced criticism for biased reporting. The program was accused of being one-sided by reporting only the claims of the members and fans without addressing key issues such as external interference and the members’ trademark registrations.
Over 4,000 complaints were posted on the ‘Unanswered Questions’ viewer board, and approximately 1,146 complaints were filed with the Korea Communications Standards Commission.
Major domestic entertainment organizations, including the Korea Management Federation (Hanmaeyeon) and the Korea Entertainment Producers Association (Yeonjehyup), also issued statements requesting a correction from the ‘Unanswered Questions’ production team.
At the time, these organizations stated, “The broadcast instilled a distorted perception of an ongoing legal dispute. We strongly urge the ‘Unanswered Questions’ production team to issue an official apology and correction to prevent the long-established reputation of our popular culture industry from being disparaged by this broadcast.”
Ultimately, five days after the broadcast, the production team apologized, saying, “It was not our intention to take sides. We deeply apologize for hurting the feelings of many people working in the K-pop field and K-pop fans, contrary to our intentions. We will conduct additional investigations on several controversial issues and produce a follow-up broadcast.”
Recently, suspicions were raised about ‘Unanswered Questions’ regarding the identity of an internal source who gave unfavorable testimony against Jeon Hong-jun, CEO of Fifty Fifty’s agency Attract. This arose because member Kina, who withdrew the lawsuit and returned to the agency, stated that the source was “an employee of The Givers, who is in conflict with CEO Jeon.”
In response, ‘Unanswered Questions’ clarified, “We confirmed the internal agency affiliation of the source through a business card and employment contract. A body double was used on screen to protect the source’s identity, and this was disclosed at the beginning of the program. The follow-up broadcast is still in preparation.” Since then, no decision has been made regarding a follow-up broadcast related to the Fifty Fifty episode.
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