SBS Clarifies Controversy Over TWICE's "Inkigayo" Encore Fancam

Jun 14, 2020

SBS has released an explanation clarifying rumors about its video of TWICE’s “Inkigayo” encore.

On June 14, TWICE claimed their fifth music show win for their latest title track “MORE & MORE” on SBS’s “Inkigayo.” As is customary, SBS later posted an “encore fancam”—a fixed-shot video of the winner’s encore performance—online.

Shortly afterwards, however, the video sparked a controversy when some fans claimed to hear a SBS staff member talking about TWICE at the end of the clip. Although a male voice could clearly be heard speaking at the end of the video, there was some debate about what he was saying—but rumors soon spread like wildfire that the man in question had said, “Wow, they’re really bad at singing.”

As fans called for SBS to clarify the rumors and apologize, the broadcast network released both an official statement and a video explaining that it had all been a misunderstanding. SBS explained that the male voice heard in TWICE’s video was not a staff member, but actually the audio of a commercial that had started airing after “Inkigayo.”

Because encore fancam videos capture the entirety of an “Inkigayo” winner’s encore performance, including the portion after the music show goes off the air, SBS released a video showing how the male voice that had incited the controversy matched up with the commercial that was airing during TWICE’s encore. According to SBS, because the commercial could be heard through the studio’s PA system, the audio made it into TWICE’s fancam.

Additionally, the footage revealed that the words spoken had actually been “Completing my intellectual image” and not “Wow, they’re really bad at singing.”

Check out SBS’s full statement—and the clarification video—below:

Clarification of the controversial audio

Thank you to everyone who loves SBS K-Pop.
There has been speculation that a member of our SBS K-Pop team criticized TWICE’s first-place encore performance today, so we are clarifying the matter.
To get to the point, this was merely a minor coincidence, but we would like to first apologize for creating the misunderstanding by posting a video without cleaning up the audio.

First, in order to make it easy to understand the circumstances by which the audio in question made it into the video, we will explain how the “Inkigayo” live performances work.

Due to the nature of live broadcasts, we are unable to predict exactly when the show will end, so we put aside a lot of time for the first-place encore performance. Because first-place encore performances are also a time for the artists to communicate with their fans on stage, they freely sing their songs on stage in the concert hall. But in terms of what is seen on air, [we do not air the full performance]. We move on in the middle of the song to airing a preview of the next program, and after that, commercials.

As a result, the “Inkigayo” staff continue to monitor what is airing [on SBS] through the commercials that follow the show, all the way up until the title screen of the following program.
Therefore, even after the artist has finished performing and exited the stage, we keep the “on-air audio” playing on the PA system so that all the staff members are aware that the live broadcast has not yet ended.

Those who have attended public broadcasts will have often seen that about 10 minutes before the performances start, we begin playing the audio and video of what is currently on-air.

Now that we have explained the background situation, we will address the controversial audio. Those words were not spoken by a staff member, but were simply the audio of a shopping app commercial that was being aired after [“Inkigayo”].

The words that caused the misunderstanding were actually commercial copy that read, “Completing my intellectual image.”

As soon as TWICE came down from the stage, we began playing the audio of the commercial that was on-air on our studio’s PA system, and it was a coincidence that at that exact timing, there was commercial copy being spoken without any background music.

We have explained this through words, but if you watch the video we’re uploading, it will become even clearer.

We think it is completely natural for people to be outraged if someone should groundlessly criticize a singer they love.
We understand that it is that kind of love that led to this misunderstanding, and we apologize for not having been careful enough to prevent this kind of misunderstanding from occurring.
We on the SBS K-Pop team have the same feelings that you do.

Although this was a misunderstanding, we would like to apologize to TWICE’s fans, who must have been upset by this; to the TWICE members, who must have been mindful of their fans’ concerns; and to the staff at TWICE’s agency.