Final lineup revealed for YG’s iKON

The votes have been tallied and the fans have spoken. All of the original members of Team B will officially be debuting as YG Entertainment’s newest boy band, iKON.

After six months of filming, with intense song and dance battles that tested the limits of a handful of K-pop idol hopefuls, YG’s “Mix & Match” weekly boy band survival program has concluded.

Former “WIN: Who Is Next?” Team B contestants Gu Jun-hoe, Song Yun-hyeong and Kim Dong-hyuk, as well as newcomer Jung Chan-woo, received the most fan votes, earning themselves a spot in YG’s new boy band.

Earlier this year, the agency ― home to Psy, Big Bang, 2NE1 and Epik High ― launched yet another reality program to create a seven-member boy band.

The show was a spin-off of last year’s popular “WIN: Who Is Next?” TV series, which created Winner ― YG’s first boy group since it debuted Big Bang nine years ago.

“Mix & Match” featured all the members of last year’s losing Team B. However, in a twist, YG head Yang Hyun-suk revealed prior to the show’s broadcast that long-time YG trainees B.I., Bobby and Jin-hwan had already been preselected to debut as members of iKON, but that the agency would be adding three new faces to the mix ― trainees Chan-woo, Jung Jin-hyeong and Yang Hong-seok ― for a total of nine contenders.

The six competing participants performed mission after mission in hopes of securing one of the four remaining spots in iKON. As the title of the show suggests, the members were mixed and matched into various teams to see which members best complimented the already confirmed members of the group.

The nine-episode survival program aired its first show in September and has garnered attention across Asia, leading to the trainees visiting Japan and China to give overseas fans the opportunity to vote for the member they wish to see debut. With fan voting, both global and local, counting for 70 percent of the weighted total and the 30 percent representing the votes from artists and members of the YG family, the fate of the six contestants was finally sealed Thursday in the show’s final episode.

In ranking order, the global fans chose Gu, Song, Kim and Chan-woo. The YG family votes had Gu coming out on top, with Song tied in second place with Donghyuk ― whose final performances landed him votes from G-Dragon, Taeyang and Daesung of Big Bang as well members from 2NE1 ― and Jung coming in the final fourth spot.

Although the final results may not have come as such a shock to avid viewers of the show, the overall tally showed newcomer Chan-woo being voted in before original Team B member Donghyuk, which may have come unexpected to some.

Whether Jin-hyeong and Hong-seok, who failed make it as members of iKON, will succeed elsewhere in the K-pop industry remains to be seen. YG representative Yang stated in the past that it would be, “difficult for (whichever two members lost out) to make their debut at YG.”

Source: Korea Herald
http://khnews.kheraldm.com/view.php?ud=20141107000858&md=20141107204803_BK