Netizens rage at Music Bank for letting LE SSERAFIM win against Lim Young woong

The unfair scoring system of KBS2's Music Bank is facing heavy backlash, after the program's latest broadcast on May 13. On this day, the first-place nominees for Music Bank included trot singer Lim Young-wang with If We Ever Meet Again and Lou Seraphim with A Fearless. Music Bank determines the ranking every week by adding up points of different categories, including 60% digital, 20% broadcasting, 10% viewer's preference, 5% physical, and 5% SNS. According to the scoring shown, Lim Young-wang earned a total of 7,035 points for the week of May 13, with 1,148 points in digital streaming scores, 0 points in TV broadcast appearances, 0 points in viewer preference scores, 5,882 points in album sales, and 2 points in social media scores. On the other hand, Lou Seraphim earned a total of 7,881 points, with 544 digital streaming points, 5,348 TV broadcast appearance points, 0 viewer preference points, 1,955 points for album sales, and 34 social media points. Soon after the winner of Music Bank was announced, many viewers were left confused. What was this TV broadcast appearance score that even Lim Young-wang, who sold over 1 million physical albums in his first week's sales, and who also ranked number one on JNChart's weekly digital streaming chart for the week of May 7, couldn't win first place? Even though Music Bank has loosely described its TV broadcast appearance score criteria as appearances or plays on TV or radio programs, in reality, it's believed that the most effective way to meet this criteria is by making guest appearances on KBS-affiliated TV shows, digital shows, such as YouTube content, or radio programs. In Lou Seraphim's case, the girl group earned their points by performing on Music Bank the week before, as well as appearing on the KBS YouTube contents Idol Human Theater and Lee Moo-jin's service. Lim Young-wong, who appeared on none of these programs and who was holding his comeback stage on this week's Music Bank, earned zero points for the same category. Artists appear on most promotional programs through meetings and communication between their agency reps and broadcasting station PDs. Thus, this unique category known as the TV broadcast appearance score on a Music Bank is not something that fans or consumers can influence.