As many of you may know, I maintain a database of music show wins. Since we're finally done with 2025, I've decided to break down and summarise all the music show wins awarded this year.
Given that there are six music shows a week (The Show--last episode aired on November 11, Show Champion, M Countdown, Music Bank, Show! Music Core, Inkigayo), there were 306 possible opportunities to award a win. However, music shows are often cancelled, so the actual number of wins given out was only 244 (up four from last year).
Let's start simply with a ranking of those 244 wins by artist and by song, as shown in the two charts below:
Some thoughts and observations:
- As referenced in this thread's title, Ive had a big year with 20 wins. This is especially significant given that they had zero wins last year, which sounds hard to believe. Ive Switch (released April 2024) sold over 1.7 million copies, so you'd think that they'd score a couple wins based solely on their massive physical sales, but that wasn't the case. They've also reclaimed their title as the Fourth Generation artist with the most wins.
- Speaking of having zero wins in 2024, that was the case for Blackpink as well, but they were able to rebound in a big way with the release of "Jump" in July, which garnered 10 wins.
- G-Dragon also had a huge year thanks to the release of the long-awaited Übermensch in February. Prior to that album, his last release was in 2017 (Kwon Ji Yong), so it'll be interesting to see if he continues to release music, or if another years-long hiatus is in the works.
- Conversely, if we're talking about artists that grossly under-performed, I-dle has to take the top spot. They achieved 10 wins in 2024, but managed to score absolutely zero this year. What happened? Was it just the name change? Their digital charting seemingly collapsed between "Klaxon" (July 2024) and "Good Thing" (May 2025). I wonder if they'll be able to recover.
- Perhaps even more surprising is IU, who managed not a single trophy this year despite winning eight times in 2024. In terms of digital strength, she's been viewed as nearly unassailable over the past decade or so, but there's definitely some weakness beginning to show.
- Two other notable artists who have declined noticeably are Illit (12 wins to four wins) and Le Sserafim (13 wins to five wins). Both are Hybe groups, so I wonder if they suffered collateral damage as a result of the whole NewJeans debacle.
- Artists that received their first-ever wins in 2025 are the following (ordered chronologically): N.Ssign, Minnie, Eunhyuk, Hearts2Hearts, Ten, KiiiKiii, Close Your Eyes, Izna, Mark, Unis, Meovv, AllDay Project, AHOF, Haechan, Dayoung, Yuqi, Idid, KickFlip, S.Coups X Mingyu, Onewe, &Team.
Are there any other results in the charts that seem interesting or surprising?
