Idol Incorporated

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**Idol Incorporated (아이돌 주식회사)** or abbreviated as **Idol Inc. (아주사)** is a project under Tnet, a broadcasting agency, to debut agency-collaboration groups through the format of a survival show. The participants would compete through several rounds and get eliminated through public voting until only the few top ranked would debut in a temporary group. The main character of Debut or Die, Park Moondae, became a participant of the third season of the program

## Season 1 & 2

The first season of Idol Inc. had high ratings and debuted a successful girl group. Due to this success, Idol Inc. started a second season that aimed to debut a mixed gender group. However, the production was stopped midway due to a scandal where one of the girls got pregnant, and her boyfriend who was also on that show was cheating on her with one of the other girls.

## Season 3 (Relisted! Idol Incorporated)

To rectify the show's image, the produces decided to rebrand for a third season called *Relisted! Idol Incorporated* with only male contestants. The this season consisted of 77 initial contestants and had 4 rounds of performances and eliminations. Viewers, called Shareholders, were able to vote for the contestants they preferred by purchasing votes called stock shares on the show and were able to sell the shares of the contestants they disliked to lower their ranking later in the season. This season was the first one after the scandal, so it was originally expected to do badly. However, it become highly successful and ended up debuting an even more successful boygroup called TeSTAR.

### Start

The show aimed to gather 77 male trainees to participate in their program. However, as a result of the collapse of season 2, season 3 was so unpopular with investors that the crew of the show had difficulties recruiting high-quality trainees from idol agencies. At the point of Park Moondae's possession, the crew were desperate enough to cast participants from the general public by searching through karaoke places. From the launch, the concept of the show was openly appeal to viewers by saying, "Even if you hate it, please watch it (the show) again", and the subtitle was "Relisted!".

When the program first started airing, the props and the low budget of the show were evident as the main missions consisted of things that depended on the individual skills and senses of the participants and they received little support from the crew. The previous season's scandal also made the initial investments and viewership ratings of the third season much lower than the first two. As the show went on, it gained attention and even became a syndrome because of its popularity.

### Trainers

* Youngrin : Special MC & Judge
* Mewdy : Vocal Trainer
* Jeok Taesong : Dance Trainer
* ?

### Broadcast

The season had a total of 13 episodes of which the last two were broadcasted live. The broadcast started in January and ended in May.

### Evaluation Process

#### Initial Evaluation

Participants from the same agency performed in front of the trainers and other participants. Based on each contestant's audition, they were place into ranks by the trainers from which they can be pushed down from if a later contestant was deemed to rank higher. The participants would then be divided into different vocal and dance class according to their skill, they could also move to higher class if they improved and vice versa. The class were divided into Gold (advanced), Silver (intermediate), and Bronze (beginner), but some participants might also get no badge and they had to go to extra class because the trainers deemed them to not have enough skill.

#### <Shining Star> Re-evaluation

The theme song of the program, 'Shining Star', was introduced after the initial evaluation. The participants were given 10 days to practice before they were being re-evaluated before the recording of Music Bomb performance. This evaluation divided the participants into tiers that were indicated by an emblem where Bronze performed the worst, silver performed decent, gold performed well, and platinum seemed ready to debut. The tier decided their position in the Music Bomb stage along with the benefit (solo-cam for each Platinum participant).

#### 1st Team Match (Song cover)

Each participant picked a ball with random number and chose an agency (of which song they wanted to perform) with that order. However, each agency had a limit of 14 participants, so if someone with lower number wanted to join a full agency, they could kick a trainee that has lower emblem tier. The 14 participants were then randomly divided into two teams where each team pick a song (shuffle) released by artist within the agency.

On the day of performance, teams that had chosen the same agency would perform back-to-back and the live audience could vote for one out of the two teams and an individual within each team. The individual that received the most vote in each team would be exempted from being eliminated in the 1st round.

 Marshmallow - To a New World
 Traveler
 Wonder Hall

#### 2nd Team Match (Song rearrangement)

The team formation of the 2nd team match was started by the MC picking up random 7 participant to choose their own teammates. However, these participants should first answer a question (quiz) correctly to pick a new member. For the song selection, a representative from each team would race and pick one among the items that were related to the original singer(s). The mission is to rearrange the song for the stage performance.

The winning benefit for the audience voting was given to all members in the team. The live audiences voted for two out of seven performing teams and all members of the winning group would get their sold-stocks invalid.

 Gigan-tic (Seon Ahyeon,, Lee Sejin B, Ha Iljoon, Kwon Heesung, Choi Wongil, etc)

#### 3rd Team Match (Self-Produced Stage)

The team for the 3rd round of team match was decided with the help of Big Data algorithm where the system looked up which participants’ stock tend to be bought together. Each team consist of 5 participants and all elements of the performance, from the song selection to the stage equipment, were made by the contestants themselves. The performance was done on the filming stage of Music Bomb.

Just like in 2nd round, the live audience voting was done in group and not individual. The benefit of becoming the winning team from the in-person votes was to save one member of the team from being eliminated in the following elimination round.

 Chicken

#### Final Round (Completing Demo Song <Final>)

The participants were presented the song demo of an original song titled 'Final'. Since it's incomplete, they had to write lyrics, choreograph, and arrange the songs. In addition, they were free to form their own team with a maximum of 7 member per team.

The final performances are performed in front of the live audience with real-time votes through texting. The preparations of each team are shown through VCR before they enter the stage. The contestants perform the acoustic version of It's Me! and receive the final rankings to determine the debuting team. The final episode was over 3 hours long.

### Special event

#### Production Presentation

Production Presentation was a promotion event held before the 1st episode of Idol Inc. was aired. The event was held in a public area, so reporters and fans were able to see all attending 77 participants.

#### PR Video

A few days after the 1st episode aired, the participants shot a 10-minute PR Video where they have to promote product(s) from T1, the parent company of Tnet. The product were decided through a short ‘treasure hunt’, where each participant had to find balls (gold, silver, or bronze) which contained the name or type of the product. According to the amount of ball they got, a participant might promote more than one product, or none at all.

The PR Video itself was being aired live simultaneously through WeTube 3 days after the 1st episode where viewers could watch and leave comments. For the top 33 participants with most viewers and likes, additional 5 minutes was given and viewers who donated 10,000 KRW or more could send a message to the participant.

#### Talent Show

A segment that the production team hastily prepare after 2nd elimination because of the gloomy atmosphere. Any participants can come onto the stage to show off their skill according to the category and the winner would be given a prize (T1 products). There are several competitions, but the two mentioned are random dance and random karaoke competition where Lee Sejin (B) and Park Moondae respectively won.

#### Casting Call

The public ranking and winning team of the third round of performances has been revealed! Before the 3rd elimination occured, Tnet and some moderately reputable agencies came to cast the participants. While the contestants were doing a personality test, the producers surprised them with casting calls from agencies where contestants could either choose to stay at the competition or go on a new endeavor with the agency that cast them.

Agencies coming to the Casting Call of Season 3: Leti, T-Holic, Traveler, etc

### Rankings

#### Internal Ranking

In the beginning, the ranking and class was purely decided by the trainers and judges in the program based on their skill on the evaluations.

#### Public Vote Ranking

The public vote ranking was decided by the amount of stock being bought and sold by the stockholders. For each round of public voting, the number of participants in the program was cut through elimination system (77 to 49 to 30 to 20 to 7).

### Pre-regression

Before Park Moondae's regression, the debut group of Relisted! Idol Inc. is called STier which consisted of 7 members including Cha Eugene, Kim Raebin, Ryu Chungwoo, and Lee Sejin A.

## Following Seasons

### Season 4 (Relisted! Idol Inc. 2)

After Season 1 and TeSTAR became successful, the producers decided to do it again for Season 2 with girls instead, but it was criticized for its more serious evil-editing and exploitation of the participants. For example, the participants themselves had to choose which participants to eliminate in the climax of the show. Even the viewers, who have watched it since the previous seasons and were terrible in their own way, announced that this was not it and declared that they would stop watching the show.
As a result of hearing all of the malicious comments that the members of the debut group normally would have heard over the course their lives all in a few months, they were half mentally broken. The program's image hit rock bottom as the participants who dropped out exposed all the atrocities of the production crew, but the show was a box office was a success. The program debuted a successful girlgroup of nine called Miry-nay which debuted under T1 Stars, the same company as TeSTAR.

### Season 5 (Relisted! Idol Inc. 3)

Season 5 of Idol Inc. (male participants) debuted a boygroup called Spacer which has Kwon Heesung, a participant of Season 3, as its member. Just like TeSTAR and Miry-nay, Spacer also debuted under T1 Stars.

## Discography

### Season 3 Digital Singles

1. 바로 나 (Shining Star) - Season 3 theme song
2. [Unnamed] - Season 3 second theme song
3. 바로 나 (Shining Star) (Acoustic ver.) - Acoustic version of Shining Star

## Gallery

### Stage Fancam

Shining Star - Cha Eugene1st Team Match - Lee Sejin A1st Team Match - Ryu Chungwoo1st Team Match - Seon Ahyeon1st Team Match - Lee Sejin B1st Team Match - Park Moondae1st Team Match - Cha Eugene1st Team Match - Kim Raebin3rd Team Match - Lee Sejin A3rd Team Match - Ryu Chungwoo3rd Team Match - Seon Ahyeon3rd Team Match - Lee Sejin B3rd Team Match - Park Moondae3rd Team Match - Cha Eugene3rd Team Match - Kim Raebin

### Hot Clip

Moondae initial evaluationOctober 31 Meeting1st Team Match PreviewThe Secret of October 31 Legend TeamworkLeTi Cover Match ResultPR Live Highlight

### Special

1st Team Match BehindMessages from Lee Sejin AMessages from Ryu ChungwooMessages from Cha EugeneMessages from Kim RaebinMessages from Seon AhyeonMessages from Lee Sejin BMessages from Park Moondae1st Elimination Top 5Idol Inc. Meme Collection #1Idol Inc. Meme Collection #2
## References

1. ↑ The crew also got desperate enough to get a writer to cast her distant relative that is 15 degrees removed because he was a former member of the national archery team and a gold medalist (Ryu Chungwoo). They were hoping his status would bring some popularity to the show.
2. ↑ So season 3 is officially called "Relisted! Idol Incorporated Season 1".
3. ↑ The show started recording in the end of December (Year 0), while EP 1 was aired in the following year (Year 1). In South Korea, you get older per 1 January (new year), so any age mentioned before the <Shining Star> re-evaluation is one year younger than during the broadcast.
4. ↑ Tapas translated the song title into **Loving the Wait** in the webnovel, and **I'm All For Waiting** in the webtoon
5. ↑ Ahyeon was shown to got Silver in webtoon chapter 6 but was mentioned to be in Advance class during re-evaluation (Webnovel chapter 8)
6. ↑ Heesung and Iljoon sat next to each other
7. ↑ Iljoon mentioned that he shared the same room as Moondae in initial evaluation. The roommates were based on rank (5 per room)