PRODUCE 101 SEASON 1 FINAL GROUP, IOI, MIGHT BE MANIPULATED TOO

On December 13, one media insider reported that the prosecution had found more evidences of additional ranking manipulation for the first season of “Produce 101.” This means, the season where IOI was created. According to Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office submitted to the National Assembly on December 3, the prosecution charged Ahn Joon Young and Kim Yong Bum (The main suspect of the fraud) with conspiring to interfere in the business of selecting, training, and debuting CJ ENM’s idol groups.

It was written to make it like Ahn Joon Young and Kim Yong Bum were acting on their own and make CJ ENM as the victim. However, the media outlet reported that another production staff member changed the rankings of I.O.I members, suggesting that this is not a problem of individual staff members but a structural problem at CJ ENM.

According the report, Ahn PD came up with a shortlist of trainees in February 2016, during the first season of “Produce 101,” and manipulated the voting results to remove two trainees who had ranked within the Top 61 and to replace them with two trainees who had been outside the Top 61. This is what Ahn Pd's wrong doing regarding the first season.

But Media Today obtained a copy of the prosecution’s explanatory statement stated that “Produce 101” production staff manipulated votes for the live broadcast of the Season 1 finale in April 2016. (including both online votes cast before the finale and text votes sent during the finale)

They changed the votes and manipulated the rankings, as the result, one trainee who had ranked in the Top 11 (“A”) was removed and one trainee who had not ranked in the Top 11 (“B”) was brought in. This was not included in the written indictment that prosecutors sent.

The prosecution said, “The defendant (Ahn Joon Young) was the main producing director for “Produce 101″ Season 1. He admits that during the finale, where the final members to debut were chosen, the voting results were manipulated so ‘A’ and ‘B’ were switched and ‘B’ was able to debut with I.O.I. However, the defendant says that he was busy doing other things like editing footage during the live broadcast and was not involved in the process of tallying up votes. He strongly denies having manipulated the votes for the final rankings.”

The prosecution continued, “At the time, ‘Produce 101’ Season 1 was being managed by former CJ ENM chief producer ‘Han’ and main writer ‘Park.’ The defendant claims that they were the ones to manipulate the votes during the finale and that he was not involved in the business.

The prosecutor thus made Ahn free in charged with manipulating the final rankings of Season 1 in his official indictment, only for produce 101 season 2 to 4. A source told that : the prosecutor checked the explanatory statement for the manipulation and found that one member of the final 11 in Season 1 had their rankings changed. Seeing as manipulation took place as early as Season 1, it seems that they had no interest in doing the show properly even from the very beginning. CJenm and Mnet also did not respond for investigation request of produce 101 season 1. “PD Han was the main producer of Season 1 and bears no small amount of responsibility for this case. He needs to be thoroughly investigated so he can take responsibility. In this situation, we are failing to see the serious responsibility and compensation that CJ ENM promised they would take. CJ ENM needs to take responsibility soon.”