What happened between MBC and HYBE Labels? Details explored following the two's recent reconciliation 

On Monday, October 30, 2023, Korean Economy reported that after a four-year dispute, MBC and HYBE Labels officially ended their disagreement as both CEOs had a meeting. The dispute began in 2019 when BTS couldn't attend MBC's Show! Music Core, during their Yet To Come promotions, due to the clash of schedules. This slowly snowballed into all the HYBE artists failing to appear on the music show.

While the dispute has been silently carried on for years now, the recent meeting between both label's CEOs has helped them gain a middle ground. The CEOs of both MBC and HYBE Labels suggested the creation of a better environment for the K-pop artists to promote and showcase their music, and netizens also hope that the meeting will ease into HYBE artists' appearance at the Show! Music Core again.

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What went down between MBC and HYBE Labels?

The alleged dispute between MBC and HYBE Labels started in 2019 when the seven-piece K-pop group released their anthological album, Proof. While the group promoted the album by visiting several music shows like KBS, SBS, etc., the members were not seen performing at MBC's Show! Music Core.

The group even bagged an award for their title track, Yet To Come, from the broadcasting company a few weeks before.

This caused much suspicion amongst netizens, but it was later explained that the group's absence was due to their schedule clash since they were also promoting overseas. Additionally, due to their tightly packed schedule, they couldn't participate in the 2019 MBC's Gayo Daejejeon as they had to perform at the New York Time Square.

However, since their schedules allowed them to perform at KBS and SBS, it created much tension between MBC and HYBE Labels. Following this, many netizens observed that MBC was allegedly not inviting HYBE artists like LESSERAFIM, fromis_9, ENHYPEN, etc., to its weekly broadcast, Show! Music Core. MBC also failed to include TXT during its annual line for the Idol Athletic Championships in 2020.

Given that this restricted much of the HYBE artists' activity and exposure in the industry, HYBE Labels conducted a joint concert gathering of all its BigHit Entertainment artists. They rolled it out on the same day as the 2020 MBC's Gayo Daejejeon. While neither of them explicitly spoke about the tension between MBC and HYBE Labels, netizens could sense it.

In October 2023, after years of MBC and HYBE Labels maintaining their distance, the two sat together for a meeting and discussed bringing a conclusion to the alleged dispute. The President of MBC, Ahn Hyung-jun, suggested to Bang Si-hyuk the importance of improving the relationship between entertainment and broadcasting companies to benefit the artists.

"Let's definitely improve the long-standing and entrenched flawed production culture between broadcast companies and entertainment companies. We should create an environment for content production with mutual respect and consideration."

Bang Si-hyuk agreed and expressed his gratitude to President Ahn for his step on reconciliation.

"I hope that this meeting will serve as an opportunity for the establishment of progressive production practices not only for our two companies but for the entire entertainment industry in South Korea."

Following the reconciliation, fans hope to see HYBE artists perform at MBC's Show! Music Core and its other events again.