SBS Drama Awards

I just saw the SBS Drama Awards and to put it lightly, it was nothing but a farce. I think we all know that award shows are political in nature but this was taking it too far. It was almost like how elementary schools in the US give every child an award.

What in the difference between Special Drama, Special Project, Serial Drama and Serial Project? They all have different winners. By making up a billion acting categories, all popular actors in their hit shows can win awards. It's like they looked at all the list of popular actors and gave them awards. Then they looked at all the leads in the lower rated shows and gave them nominations. So basically, they would choose the winner then fill the rest of the nominees with actors on their other shows.

This was a post left by daunte29 in the MBC Awards thread on soompi:

I work and live in korea but I'm not korean. Most older korean folks in their 30s - 60s already know what I'm about to say here.

Those of us accustomed to hollywood film award shows and similar ones in Europe & HongKong/Taiwan should know that korean drama awards - MBC, SBS, KBS - are NOT so much about 'excellence' or 'rankings' but are MAINLY PR (public relations) shows. The so-called judges (other than internet polling or netizen votings) are the senior directors from their own respective broadcast companies with one or two invited 'outsiders' whose "services" are paid by the broadcasting station who invited them to judge. Therefore they can (and have for the past few years) easily decide who the winners are.

It's just like mum and dad in a family of 8 kids deciding who gets the cake first and the others biscuits.

Also for MBC, SBS & KBS drama award shows, voting is not audited by third-party accounting firms like how it's done in non-korean award shows to ensure accuracy and impartiality. So why do they do these internally pre-determined award shows?

To boost the global sales of its dramas through the sales of boxsets and broadcasting rights to overseas TV stations- simply by awarding the actors/actresses, the drama then earns the 'distinction' of having won Best This or Best That, and overseas fans will snap it up thinking the drama MUST be good bcos one (or two or three) of its cast won awards. Yabba, Dabba, doo!!

Closer examination, that is if they bother, will plainly show for example, that a particular MBC drama actually only won awards given by MBC, that a KBS drama won awards given by KBS...do you see what I mean?

I am NOT saying that korean actors/actresses do not deserve these awards and neither am I saying they're not talented or that the dramas are not by themselves well-produced. However I do think the SYSTEM of how winners are chosen leaves much to be desired. And it seems the big 3 - MBC, SBS & KBS - will each perpetuate their own self-patting award shows for many many years into the future.

During drama award shows, when you see the celebs are dressed-up siiting there looking pretty or dashing, you should also know BY NOW everyone (or almost everyone) WILL go home with at least one award. Winners ALL! Losers few...make that very few or or else they WON'T even be invited and just watch proceedings from the telly.

Drama series, both good and the not-so-good, once it ends its run on Korean domestic TV, then becomes a PRODUCT for overseas viewers to buy (or download). In other words, k dramas are BIG business for MBC, SBS, KBS and drama awards shows definitely help to promote big business. That's so very Korean.

What he or she said seems to be true. Everyone who showed up won an award. LOL. It doesn't matter if they were deserving or not (I happen to think they weren't all deserving of top awards. Just because your show is a hit doesn't automatically mean you should get an award) but they all went home with awards.

I stopped watching award shows in general many years ago because I kinda stopped watching t.v. lol.. but you often see some critically acclaimed shows win awards (e.g Arrested Development) even if they have low ratings and some hit shows win no awards. I bet some politics was also involved in those selections but it does make one feel that the academy or whoever determines the winner wasn't basing it on popularity alone.

Not that I think the fans are any better. Secret Garden won all three Netizen awards. Is it because it's the best drama of the year or the most recent hit? I'm guessing it's the latter.

I don't even remember what my original point was but basically, I just saw the SBS Awards and boy was it just a bunch of nonsense. lol.