Amid the large-scale casualties from the Jeju Air plane crash, K Entertainment has entered ‘memorial mode’ by taking emergency measures such as canceling, postponing, and downsizing previously announced events.

Terrestrial broadcasting award ceremonies such as the Broadcasting Entertainment Awards and Drama Awards, which have become annual events at the end of the year, have been ‘all canceled’. Some of them will inevitably be recorded, but it is unknown when they will be aired.

On the 30th, the second day after the plane crash, the three terrestrial broadcasters KBS, MBC, and SBS announced that they would cancel major award ceremonies that were scheduled to be broadcast live at the end of the year.

Specifically, the MBC Drama Awards, which were scheduled for the 30th, and the KBS Drama Awards, which were scheduled for the 31st, have been changed from being live broadcasts to ‘recorded’. The SBS Entertainment Awards, which was scheduled for the 31st, has canceled the award ceremony itself. In relation to this, SBS said, ‘Whether or not it will be rescheduled in the future has also been decided. MBC‘s Gayo Daejejeon, which was scheduled for the 31st, will also be canceled. However, since a considerable amount of pre-recording has been done for the program, it seems possible that it will be rescheduled in the future.

Most promotional schedules for albums or movies that were scheduled to be released or released in the new year have also been postponed.

K-pop’s top unit Boo Seok-soon and group Ive, who had announced the release of new albums on January 8th and February 3rd respectively, have temporarily suspended and postponed their comeback promotions. Group Seventeen‘s special unit Boo Seok-soon was planning to release a new single ‘Teleparty’, and Ive was planning to release a new mini-album ‘Ive Empathy’.

The same goes for dramas and movies. The movie ‘Secret That Can’t Be Told’ and the new global OTT Disney+ series ‘Trigger’ announced that they will temporarily postpone their production presentations and press previews on the 30th, respectively. The movie ‘Secret That Can‘t Be Told’, co-starring Do Kyung-soo and Won Jin-ah, is scheduled to be released in January, while the new Disney+ series ‘Trigger’, starring Kim Hye-soo and Jung Sung-il, is scheduled to be released on January 15.

Blockbuster movies that are currently being released or are about to be released have also canceled large-scale stage greetings that were scheduled for New Year’s Day. Following the hit ‘Harbin’, which surpassed 2 million moviegoers nationwide in its first week of release, the movie ‘Bogota’, which is scheduled to premiere on the 31st, has also canceled its stage greetings scheduled for January 1.


Reporter Heo Min-nyeong mignon@donga.com