I might have some insight on Iz*One's disbandment.

They could have tried to buy out the contracts from the other labels, but that was probably more money than CJ ent was trying to pay.

After all, that's business

Quote from winniethepb

I'm pretty sure it's because survival shows bring in more money than Iz*one. 3M album sales is around 30M in revenue but if you subtract all the cuts, I'm sure it's not a big number and it took Izone and 2.5 years to make that much whereas a show like Planet Girls 999 will make more within only a few months.

That's just albums though never mind merch (Iz*One sold a ton of merch), concerts, CFs and brand deals, and etc. Iz*One actively brought in tons of money whereas Doesn't it usually cost more to run a survival show? I specifically remember I-land getting a lot of flack in the beginning for how much money they threw away to make that survival show. Survival shows have to pay for mentors, the building to host the show (build, in I-land's case), dorms for contestants, pay a whole production and staff crew, pay for props, clothes, and stage materials, pay for promotions, and pay for food; all for a large number of trainees. And also pay for songs to use on the show. Keep in mind this price stretches over months because of how long survival shows usually take to film.

The only way to make money when filming a survival show is to charge for voting (which can be a double edged sword cause very few survival shows reach the popularity that Produce had and charging to pay might cause less people to watch), but it doesn't really matter cause most don't do paid voting anyway. And to make matters worse you don't even know if the group they have invested all that money in for the survival show will even be popular enough to make up for all that time and money spent.

Btw I don't think girls planet 999 had anything to do with iz*One ending early. Mnet has been planning girls planet 999 since last year and the show doesn't even start till August while Iz*One disbandment date was all int way in April. They had more than sufficient time and planning to give Iz*One a proper disbandment but more than likely some companies probably had disagreements and therefore rushed disbandment. As for the extension that was never really a guarantee to begin with. Even as popular as Wanna One was they still disbanded.

Either way IzOne may very well not be finished just yet. Let's wait and see what their individual companies decide.