Music Show Rankings Back, Now What?

With MBC's 'Music Core' bringing back the ranking system, now all three music shows from the major networks have a trophy reserved for their weekly winners.

Following in the footsteps of 'Music Bank' and 'Inkigayo' which returned their ranking system in recent months, 'Music Core' resurrected the system that had been scrapped seven years ago.

In the face of tremendous rating struggles, the common solution the three networks have arrived at is more competition and more openness to new artists from audition programs.

Many artists, who live and die by the public's interest and love for their work, choose as their most special moments on TV the time they watched confetti fall as they were handed a winning trophy on a music show. In that respect, the return of the ranking system is good news, albeit partially.

In addition, the fading of resistance to artists from other networks' audition shows is a positive movement toward more variety of performances on music shows. Seo In Guk and Huh Gak are examples of such loosening of conflicts between TV networks.

So will these efforts be enough to bring viewers back to their TV screens?

The first and foremost task at hand is to establish a system that viewers will deem fair and objective. All three networks, of course, claim to have fair methods in place. And to be fair for them, they may all be right since there is no universal algorithm with so many variables to be counted in or out depending on how one considers the idea of popularity.

Even the Billboard, over a half-century old, shifted its ranking paradigm with the increasing foothold of social media networks in today's society. The inclusion of Youtube hits in its ranking system is the newest change that reflects the direction we are headed to.


In time, we will see whether the Korean networks will bring something reasonable to the ranking table. If any one of them does get it right, we are responsible for approving and applauding their efforts so as to promote its establishment. Whether the staff members of music shows will be shopping for bottles of champagne in celebration or carrying boxes of soju in despair remains to be seen. For the sake of the public, both viewers and pedestrians who may run into the inebriated bunch, we hope for the former.            

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Music Core
Inkigayo
Music Bank
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