A program that shows the level of the production staff who ask, ‘Why is this controversial?’ can no longer be released into the world. No, it might be more appropriate to say that a program that should not have been released almost came to be, but was prevented from being released. This is the story of ‘Under Fifteen’, which was canceled due to the ‘Child Sexual Commodification’ controversy.

‘Under Fifteen’ is a K-pop prodigy discovery project under the age of 15, and started with the logline, “An audition to train a 5th generation girl group with skills and talent that surpass their age.” At first glance, it seems plausible. However, there was a hidden trap. That‘s the ‘Under 15’. Those between the ages of 13 and 15 are middle school students, but the younger ones are elementary school students. There are also kindergarteners. They are closer to children than teenagers. The production team of ‘Under Fifteen’ was trying to ‘media business’ with the easy-to-eat bait of ‘K-POP’ targeting these young children. This intention was quickly exposed. People from all over demanded that the show be canceled, pointing out the sexual commercialization of children.

In response, MBN, which had confirmed the broadcast date, belatedly recognized the seriousness of the situation and announced that it would reconsider the broadcast. Then, the production team of ‘Under Fifteen’ reacted angrily. The production company, Crea Studio, showed its intention to release the program by releasing a teaser video. And then, on the 25th, they held an event similar to a press conference called ‘Emergency Production Report’, which I have never heard of or seen before.

Crea Studio CEO Hwang In-young, CEO Seo Hye-jin, and PD Yong Seok-in attended the emergency production briefing for ‘Under Fifteen’ held on the 2nd floor Grand Ballroom of Stanford Hotel Korea in Sangam-dong, Mapo-gu, Seoul.

Regarding the ‘Under Fifteen’ child sexual objectification controversy, CEO Hwang In-young said, “I am sorry and regretful for causing concern. When producing a show, you can get caught up in unexpected controversies, and sometimes it can become an opportunity to develop in unexpected ways. However, the unexpected aspects are being expanded as if they were true,” and said, “The staff members who risked their pride to help have suffered a great blow to their honor. I thought about ‘How can we end this situation?’ and decided to hold this unusual event. If possible, we would like to urgently clarify any differences in our thoughts here,” he said, explaining the reason for holding an emergency production report meeting.


CEO Hwang In-young said, “I learned that those who create broadcasts are evaluated by their content rather than their words, and that they should be recognized by the public for that. This made me want to protect everyone who works with us.”

CEO Seo Hye-jin also said about the controversy over the barcodes in the participants’ profile photos, “I want to say that the barcode controversy is a huge misunderstanding. It was produced with the concept of a student ID card. We were also very surprised that they were using this to refer to sexual meanings,” and “We were very surprised that they were using the concept of a student ID card to talk about the prostitution of a 9-year-old girl and something sexual. Also, the production team was made up of women. 90% of the production team on site are women. We should not assume that female workers have low sexual awareness. I hope you realize that it is a woman who is producing this on site.”

CEO Seo Hye-jin said, “I bow my head and beg you. Our intention is not to sexually objectify children.” She continued, “We are not trying to force the broadcast, but are trying to adjust the broadcast date by taking into account various opinions. We are not trying to go with a ‘strong man versus strong man.’ We created this opportunity to explain that that is absolutely not our intention.” She repeatedly begged for people to stop viewing the program with distorted views. CEO Hwang In-young even shed tears during the Q&A session. CEO Seo Hye-jin also shed tears.

Regarding the programming, she said, “We have done various programs with MBN, but we do not receive production costs from MBN. MBN is just a platform. We do not have differences of opinion with MBN. MBN felt a responsibility as a platform, so we used the expression ‘reconsideration.’ If you really want to protest, you can come to the front of Crea Studio and do so. MBN has nothing to do with this issue.” In particular, CEO Seo Hye-jin said, “We submitted the completed broadcast to the Korea Communications Commission and the Korea Communications Standards Commission two weeks ago, and an internal review was conducted that found no problems.” However, that statement was false.

After the event, the Korea Communications Standards Commission (hereinafter referred to as KCC) released an explanatory statement, stating, “In accordance with Article 21 of the ‘Act on the Establishment and Operation of the Korea Communications Commission’ and Article 32 of the ‘Broadcasting Act’, the KCC conducts ‘post-deliberation’ on programs that have already been broadcast to determine whether or not they violated the deliberation regulations.” They also said, “The claim that we did not receive the completed program before broadcast and that we reviewed it and conveyed our opinion on whether or not the deliberation regulations were violated is not true. We have strongly protested to Crea Studio for making false claims in a public setting.”

In response to the KCC’s refutation, Crea Studio corrected its statement made at the emergency production briefing. The prior review was done by the broadcasting station, not the Korea Communications Standards Commission. However, as the originally announced broadcast date approached, they suddenly released an official statement on the 28th and announced the cancellation of the broadcast.



The production team of ‘Under Fifteen’ said, “After much deliberation and discussion, we decided that the best way to proceed was to cancel the broadcast scheduled for the 31st and to protect the cast and reorganize,” and added, “We will not be programming it on MBN.”

MBN also said, “We have confirmed the position of the production company, Crea Studio, regarding the cancellation of ‘Under Fifteen’, which was scheduled to premiere on the 31st. We would like to inform you that regardless of this broadcast cancellation, we will continue to cooperate with Crea Studio in the future.”

In the end, ‘Under Fifteen’ only postponed the release date, but it seems that the production team’s determination for the program is firm. The production team can‘t read between the lines. Aside from the controversy over ‘child sexualization’, they have no idea about the aftermath of the program. They only have shallow commercialism that thinks that if the program gets high viewership ratings and becomes a hot topic, it’s a medal. It‘s hard to find any trace of them thinking about what kind of environment the children participating in it are exposed to. The entertainment industry is a place that even adults have a hard time enduring. Even most planners debut those who can endure the media environment after a certain amount of practice time. This means that they don’t expose them to the media right away.

We live in an era where people can easily be exposed to unspecified numbers of people through YouTube and SNS due to the rise of mobile devices, but unless you‘re an influencer, your exposure range isn’t wide. However, broadcasting is different. It has considerable power. The production team seems to have overlooked this. The sophistry of saying that we should just listen to the children‘s dreams without knowing what kind of environment they’ll be exposed to and become the gossip of unspecified numbers of people can only be interpreted as ‘I want to hit the jackpot with this broadcast’. Therefore, as a broadcaster, it is clear that we must pay attention to production.

‘Under Fifteen’ should be cancelled rather than re-examined, and similar programs should not be reviewed anymore. Even now, adults are creating an environment that is harmful to children.

Hong Se-young, Donga.com reporter projecthong@donga.com

This article is automatically translated using Google AI. If you notice any inaccuracies, please let us know at allkstar@donga.com.