'Kingdom: Legendary War': Were voting scores rigged? MNET clarifies how points are given to ATEEZ and other bands
'Kingdom: Legendary War' premiered on MNET on April 1 with BTOB, iKon, ATEEZ, Stray Kids, The Boyz, and SF9. Since then there has been a lot of excitement surrounding the show. However, after the first week of performances, fans have begun questioning how the votes are being tabulated.
Fans took the example of ATEEZ's total score and said that it did not match the total points earned by ATEEZ from the professional panel and the self-voting round. MNET explained how the voting within the show takes place to clarify any doubts that fans might have while they watch the show that sees bands battle amongst each other.
RELATED ARTICLES
When is Mnet’s 'Kingdom' airing? K-pop groups ATEEZ, Stray Kids to join The Boyz on reality TV show
MNET explained, "Of the 20,000 total points for the first round, 10,000 of them were divided up among the groups based on the percentage of votes they each received. The total score shown has been rounded up or down to the third decimals." The first round of the show was completed on April 15 with the second half of the show being aired and that left fans awed with the bands' performances.
The first episode's Round One, with the theme 'To The World', kicked off with performances by THE BOYZ, iKON, and BTOB. The idea of the theme was to get the bands to remix one of their songs and put on a performance that they wanted to “show to the world.” The second episode that aired on April 15 saw Stray Kids, ATEEZ, and SF9 perform. It was in this episode that the questions about errors while computing votes were raised.
Shockingly enough, the episode saw SF9 receive a 0 in self-evaluation and this left the fans extremely heartbroken over the result. They were also placed last in the first round of the competition after scoring 444.444 points from the professional evaluation. On the show, Insung, who is usually the most cheery member of the team said that he was very upset when the scores were revealed. However, fans believe that certain bands are at a disadvantage.
SF9's mood had plummeted but Chani, a member of the band, said, "We started from 'Fanfare' and won 1st place for 'Good Guy' and that made me feel very proud. For this first stage, I will think of it as our 'Fanfare' days and try our best to reach 1st again. Fighting!"
One fan wrote on a discussion board, "That’s not fair. Their performance was really awesome." Another user wrote, "Mnet is just using the third-gen acts to pull in more viewers, they have no intention of letting them win. YG should have kept boycotting them, they haven't changed a bit. I took screenshots of them deleting views on the iKON mv on YouTube." One fan even claimed that the show was rigged and said, "Well..mnet is synonymous to RIGGED and manipulation..do you still trust them? c'mon.."