Made in Korea: British boy band hopefuls face K-pop’s brutal regime

Five aspiring boy band members from the UK, a house in Seoul’s popular Itaewon district, and training at one of Korea’s leading K-pop talent agencies – this is the recipe offered up by Made in Korea: The K-Pop experience, a new BBC reality show.

The show charts the journey of a group of young men aged between 19 and 23 through a strict, 100-day training process, leading to their debut as a band called Dear Alice.

Made in Korea taps into global interest in K-pop and curiosity around the industry model that has generated a large number of shiny, attractive and highly-skilled acts such as BTS, Blackpink, Seventeen and Twice.

The results speak for themselves. Taylor Swift may have been the biggest-selling artist in the world in 2023, but four of 2023’s top ten best-selling acts globally were Korean, according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry.

The leading South Korean K-pop music agencies are known for their rigorous and years-long training programmes, which have come under fire at times for being exploitative of talent. Disillusioned performers have complained of being overworked, underpaid, abused and unprotected by contracts that fail to fairly and responsibly manage their careers.

Criticism of such practices has led to unionization and some improvements in conditions for performers. However, as members of the world-famous girl group Blackpink and others have attested, the training required to reach the heights of industry success remains extremely rigorous and all-consuming of performers’ time and energy.

A ‘unique’ experiment

Despite claiming to be a “unique experiment” with its British membership, Made in Korea is not the first time non-Korean hopefuls have faced the K-pop training machine.