Korea's largest music award show is on the verge of being cancelled in the wake of accusations of unfair judging. SM Entertainment has announced that their musicians, including Girls' Generation, Super Junior, SHINee, and f(x), will boycott the 2009 Mnet Asian Music Awards (MAMA), claiming that they cannot trust the judging criteria or the fairness of the awards. SM Entertainment cited an example of “Gee,” Girls’ Generation’s greatest hit this year, saying that while “Gee” finished in first place for nine weeks straight on Music Bank, it never once placed first in M Countdown, Mnet’s music ranking show on Mnet.
Before the boycott of SM Entertainment, Inwoo Entertainment had declared that it will pull out the nominees belonging to the company, Park Hyun-bin and girl duo Wink, because “I Like You” sung by traditional K-pop diva Jang Yun-jeong and legendary singer Nam Jin were not nominated.
If artists belonging to these two management companies really don’t show up at the award ceremony, the reputation of MAMA as the largest music award show in Asia will be greatly damaged. Since the days of the Mnet KM Music Festival, Mnet has been at the center of controversy for a host of reasons. Last year the top prize went to three different teams, and M, also known as Lee Min-woo of Shinhwa, suddenly cancelled his appearance minutes before the live show.