2023 SBS Drama Awards Responds To Controversy Over Best Couple Award

SBS has officially addressed the controversy over the Best Couple award criteria for the upcoming 2023 SBS Drama Awards.

Earlier this month, SBS held an online vote for this year’s Best Couple award on its official website from December 18 to 27. The 2023 nominees for Best Couple are “The Secret Romantic Guesthouse” stars Ryeoun and Shin Ye Eun, “Dr. Romantic 3” stars Ahn Hyo Seop and Lee Sung Kyung, and “My Demon” stars Song Kang and Kim Yoo Jung.

Song Kang and Kim Yoo Jung were the overwhelming winners of the online vote, with fans noting that they received almost three times the votes as the couple in second place.

However, when online voting ended on December 27, SBS released a statement announcing that the Best Couple award would be determined based not only on the results of the online vote, but also on a number of other criteria.

The network stated, “Aside from the online voting results, the Best Couple award is also determined based on the votes of each drama’s production team, the internal votes of SBS and Studio S employees, viewership ratings, online buzz, and other factors. The results will be announced during the live broadcast [of the 2023 SBS Drama Awards].”

This announcement led to speculation that SBS had changed the award criteria in order to avoid giving the award to Song Kang, who was previously reported not to be attending the 2023 SBS Drama Awards. Earlier in the week, SBS responded to rumors of Song Kang’s absence by stating that he was “adjusting his schedule,” suggesting that his attendance at the awards was still up in the air.

On December 29, SBS firmly denied the speculation that they had changed the award criteria. “The criteria for the Best Couple award have been the same every year, and we put them in writing this year because we’d received many inquiries about the award criteria,” said the network. “We would be grateful if you would tune in to the broadcast to see the award results.”

The 2023 SBS Drama Awards will take place on December 29 at 8:40 p.m. KST, and the full show will be available with subtitles on Viki.

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