Produce 101 Season 6 (Fake)

***Produce 101 Season 6*** (Korean: 프로듀스 101 시즌 6) was the sixth season of the South Korean reality competition series *Produce 101*. It was a large-scale project in which the public "produces" a girl group by voting for members out of a pool of 101 contestants from South Korea and other countries, as well as voting for the group's concept, name and debut single. The winning 11 contestants, with no nationality caps, as voted by Korean and foreign viewers, would promote as a group for 7 years with a chance of contract extension. The program itself is primarily in Korean, however staff and trainer instructions were translated onsite by interpreters. The show announced the final 11 members who made it into, as well as the official name of the group PRIZM during the finale on December 19, 2022.

Produced by CJ E&M for Mnet, the show premiered on October 3, 2022, and concluded on December 19, 2022, with 11 episodes. It was directed by Kang Eun-jae, who also directed the previous season of *Produce 101*.

## Concept and Format

*Produce 101 Season 3* brought together 101 girls from different entertainment companies in Japan and South Korea to form a 11-person Korean group that would promote for 7 years with a chance of contract extension. Formed by Mnet, members of the group are able to promote under their own agencies concurrently, as the show, and the groups' promotions thereafter, are recorded in batches.

The show started with 101 contestants, who were initially grouped into several classes. Episodic competitions were featured in which girls performed in teams on various songs, and were voted by the studio audience, with the winning teams receiving a number of bonus votes to apply to their overall vote count. The viewer-submitted votes were then applied and the girls were ranked, with certain episodes being elimination rounds to reduce the remaining number of contestants

Of the 101 contestants, only 11 were selected regardless of nationality.

## Promotions and Broadcast

The concept for *Produce 101 Season 3* was revealed on May 12, 2022. The first teaser for the show was released on August 31, 2022. On September 7, the series' theme song "It's Me!" (바로 나야!) was recorded by the contestants of the show with Fukumoto Sakura and Hana Kim as center. The winners of the previous series, I.O.I, Wanna One, X1, and ONEX made appearances at the recording. *Produce 101 Season 3'*s contestants performed the theme song on *M Countdown* in September 16, 2022 .

The show premiered on October 3, 2022, on Mnet in South Korea and Mnet Japan. It is also being broadcast in Japan on TV Asahi and ABS-CBN in the Philippines. CJ E&M is also live streaming the series on their TVing Global service. The series was broadcast on tvN Asia in Hong Kong, Singapore, Macau, Malaysia, Indonesia, Taiwan, Thailand, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Cambodia and Myanmar where it premiered on October 3, 2022.

## Staff Members

The series was presented by Jung Hae-in. Other artists featured as cast members:

* **Vocal Trainers:**
	+ Kim Young Min
	+ IU
	+ Soyou
* **Dance Trainers:**
	+ Bae Yoon-jeong
	+ Choi Young Jun
	+ Lia Kim
* **Rap Trainers:**
	+ Jessi
	+ Yoon Mi Rae
	+ Cheetah

* **Special MC's:**
	+ Jeon Somi (Episode 5, and 12)
	+ Kang Daniel (Episode 8, and 12)
	+ Theo Gray (Episode 1, 11, and 12)
	+ Kim Yohan (Episode 1, 12)
	+ Jang Wonyoung (Episode 1, 12)

## Contestants

*Main Article: List of Produce 101 Season 3 (Fake) Contestants*

**Color Key**

## Episodes

### Episode 1 (October 3, 2022)

The contestants enter the studio, where seats are arranged in a pyramid numbered from 1 to 101. Each contestant is introduced according to their company or group, with their self-predicted rankings shown on a monitor above the stage. After all 101 girls are seated, Jang Wonyoung, Kim Yohan, and Theo Gray. the first place winners of the past three seasons, enter as special MC's to explain the rules of the competition. The contestants then perform in front of the mentors for evaluation. Each individual is given a letter grade from A to F based on their overall talents, organizing them into temporary classes for training. At the end, the popularity ranking is shown with DSP Media's Angela Yu taking first place.

### Episode 2 (October 10, 2022)

After the contestants are grouped according to their grades, the mentors announce that they will be performing on *M Countdown* with *Produce 48*'s theme song "It's Me". Their line distribution and positioning on stage will be determined by their grades, with A having the most while F are backup dancers. The contestants are given three days to memorize the choreography and the lyrics to both versions of the song, after which they will undergo a re-evaluation and have their grades reassigned. The contestants film themselves performing the song individually. Each video is then watched and evaluated by the mentors. The girls are then given their new grades and asked to move into their new practice rooms.

### Episode 3 (October 17, 2022)

The contestants move to their new groups, after which the new A class girls compete for the center position in "It's Me!". Each girl is given one minute to appeal to the lower classes, who proceed to vote for their center pick. Starship Entertainment's Hana Kim is chosen to be the center. After the live performance on *M Countdown*, the girls have their first meeting with producer Jung Hae-in. Jung explains that the next event is a group battle: contestants are organized into 20 teams of 5-6 members; 2 teams compete against each other on a group's debut vs popular song. The options are GFRIEND (Glass Bead v. Me Gustas Tu), 4minute (HOT ISSUE v. Crazy), TWICE (Like OOH-AHH v. What is Love), IZ\*ONE (La Vie En Rose v. Fiesta), MAMAMOO (Mr. Ambiguous v. Egotistic), G(I)-dle (LATATA v. HWAA), Blackpink (BOOMBAYAH v. DDU-DU DDU-DU), Red Velvet (Happiness v. Peek-A-Boo), Girl's Generation (Into the New World v. Gee), Apink (I Don't Know v. Mr. Chu) . The teams practice and then perform the songs, with each individual being voted on separately by the studio audience, and with the members on the winning team for their song receiving a bonus of 1000 votes.

### Episode 4 (October 24, 2022)

The rehearsals and performances of the rest of the teams are shown. Afterwards, the contestants are shown their rankings based purely on their individual votes without the group bonus. Stacy Roxas takes first place, and is further revealed to have taken first place overall as her team won the group battle.

### Episode 5 (October 31, 2022)

Jung Hae-in gives words of advice to the girls. IZ\*ONE members from the previous *Produce 101* contest meet with the girls and host a dance battle, where in High Up Entertainment's Stacy Roxas is crowned the "Dancing Queen". The girls vote on the top 11 "visual centers", in which Jang Soeun takes 1st place. With online votes included, the ranks of the girls are announced from 60th place to 1st place; High Up Entertainment's Park Dayeon is voted 1st while Happy Tribe Entertainment's Jang Hayoung is voted 61st. The girls that are ranked 62-101 are eliminated from the competition.

### Episode 6 (November 7, 2022)

The trainees are tasked to perform live in groups based on positions they want to debut in: vocal/rap or dance. There are five songs for vocals (The Ark's "The Light", IU's Blueming, Taeyeon's "I", Red Velvet's "Really Bad Boy", Bolbbalgan4's "To My Youth") , four songs for dance (ITZY's Wannabe, Ariana Grande's "break up with your gilfriend, i'm bored, Little Mix's "Salute", and Hwasa's "Maria"), and three songs for rap (SMTM4's Turtle Ship, Jessi's Nunu Nana, and CL's "Post Up"). Each song has a member limit and would be picked by each trainee, starting from the 13th trainee. The top 12 trainees are the last to pick and can choose filled groups. The winner for each song will receive a 5,000 vote bonus, and the overall winner for each of the two categories will receive a 100,000 vote bonus. Also, for the next round of general voting, only 35 contestants will move on. Vocal, rap and dance teams are shown and after each performance, they are ranked in their groups.

### Episode 7 (November 14, 2022)

The remaining teams are shown and are ranked in their groups first and then overall in the categories. Hana Kim emerged as the winner in the vocal category, Seo Heejin in the dance category, and Nana emerged as the winner in the rap category, all of them earning the bonus 100,000 votes.

### Episode 8 (November 21, 2022)

Jung Hae-in announces the beginning of the next evaluation prior to the second round of eliminations, meaning that all 61 girls that have survived so far will continue to practice for the performances, but not all of them may get to perform. The evaluation is revealed to be a concept evaluation where viewers chose group formations from a poll online. Jung Hae-in introduces the six songs: Contemporary Girls Pop "Player" (Bumzu), R&B/Hip-Hop "Lilacs" (EDEN), Moombahton "Valentine" (Theo Gray), Girl Crush Pop "Heat Wave'" (Shinsadong Tiger) and Pop Dance "Tell Me" (Brave Brothers). The second round of eliminations takes place during the second half of the episode with the remaining 61 contestants from each company are seen entering the main studio. Names of the top 35 trainees are called by Jung Hae-in one by one starting from rank 34. The contenders for 1st place were Hana Kim, Jung Gaeul, Park Dayeon, and Seo Heejin. It is then announced that Seo Heejin ranked at 1st place. Meanwhile, the contenders for 35th place were Bae Yehji, Han Soojin, Sakura Fukumoto, and Zhang Zhenni. It is announced that Bae Yehji ranked at 35th, just escaping elimination.

### Episode 9 (November 28, 2022)

Jung Hae-in and former mebers of IZ\*ONE visits the girls to give them advice and answer to their questions. The girls then divide their parts and competed for the positions they wanted and had also went to the studio of the producer's of their respective songs to check if the positions were matched well with the contestants. Right after that, they faced an evaluation in front of Jung Hae-in, their trainers and the songs' composers and choreographers. No performances are aired in this episode.

### Episode 10 (December 5, 2022)

This episode shows the live performances for all six concept evaluations. Valentine group (composed of Stacy Roxas, Liu Jingyi, Ning Beibei, Alexi Chiu, Kim Yeona, Bae Juri, and Seo Heejin) are declared the winners of the concept evaluation, resulting in a total benefit of 130,000 votes (20,000 per member and 50,000 for the first in the group). Tell Me group came in 2nd, Player came in 3rd, Lilacs group came in 4th, and Heat Wave group came in 5th. All five groups performed on MCountdown.

### Episode 11 (December 12, 2022)

Amidst the eliminations, the girls undergo make-up lessons, attend a therapy session to share about their current feelings. They are also asked to pick a contestant that they would've voted as producers with OUI Entertainment's Kang Chaeyun taking 1st place and DSP Media's Angela Yu and 8D Entertainment's Kim Yeona taking 2nd and 3rd place, respectively. At the elimination, Jung Hae-in reveals that only 22 trainees will advance to the final stage. Hana Kim, Nana, Stacy Roxas, and Seo Heejin are called up as the contenders for 1st, with Nana revealing as the first place. The contenders for 22nd place are then called up: Joo Eunji and Jung Naeun. Joo Eunji survives from being eliminated. With the top 22 confirmed, Jung Hae-in announces the next and final mission: the debut song evaluation. He introduces "Maybe You" (produced by Shinsadong Tiger ) and "U&I" (produced by Pdogg) as the final line-up's debut songs. He explains that they will be split into two teams of 11. The girls choose their positions beginning with rank 22 up to 1, with the higher ranked girls being given the advantage of replacing the lower ranked girls and bumping them into another position. After positions are confirmed, the girls begin practicing the choreography and memorizing the lyrics in preparation for the final stage.

### Episode 12 (December 19, 2022)

The episode begins showing the girls' audition tapes, as well as their final confessional interviews. Throughout the episode, the trainees currently ranked and aiming for the 11th are revealed to encourage people to vote. The debut evaluation starts off with the eliminated trainees joining the top 22 for a performance of "Soul Searching". Jung Hae-in then reveals the group name as PRIZM. The episode also shows the last preparations for the two final songs, showing the clip for the two contenders for center position and announcing the final center on stage. BigHit Music's Park Haemin is chosen for "Maybe You" and High Up Entertainment's Stacy Roxas for "U&I". Jung Hae-in had also showed the contenders for 10th position during the live voting which were Song Minji, Han Byul, Angela Yu, and Jeon Kyubin . The girls are also showed recording a final song sang by all the top 22 trainees titled "Let's Go!", with lyrics describing their journey through the show. The trainees share their final thanks to the trainers and also watch their audition tapes, and finally, reading letters they had written to themselves from earlier episodes.

Voting soon comes to a close, and ranking announcements begin. The ranking announcement started from the contestant who ranked at 10th place which was Cube Entertainment's Song Minji, followed by OUI Entertainment's Kang Chaeyun at 9th, Yuehua Entertainment's Liu Jingyi at 8th, High Up Entertainment's Park Dayeon at 7th, JYP Entertainment's Seo Heejin at 6th, BigHit Music's Park Haemin at 5th, C9 Entertainment's Jung Gaeul at 4th, and BlockBerry Creative's Nana at 3rd, confirming them for debut. Then, Starship Entertainment's Hana Kim and High Up Entertainment's Stacy Roxas are called up as contenders for 1st, with Hana Kim taking the first place, confirming her position as PRIZM's center. The contenders for 11th place were YG KPLUS's Han Byul, 143 Entertainment's Jeon Kyubin, DSP Media's Angela Yu, and Woollim Entertainment's Nam Jiwon. It was then announced that the 11th and final spot for PRIZM went to Jeon Kyubin.

## Discography

### Singles

* Label: WAKEONE
* Formats: Digital Download
 **"Let's Go!"** | * Released: October 3, 2022
* Label: WAKEONE
* Formats: Digital Download

 **"Maybe You"** | 5

## Ratings

In the table below, **blue numbers** represent the lowest ratings and **Red numbers** represent the highest ratings.