SEOUL – SBS’s “Inkigayo” extended its off-air period into early January, with the South Korean broadcaster confirming the weekly music program would not air on January 4 and would instead be replaced in its regular Sunday afternoon slot.
SBS said the show’s hiatus would continue for an additional week beyond a previously announced year-end pause. The music program last aired an episode on December 7, then did not broadcast on December 14, December 21, or December 28 following SBS’s earlier notice of a three-week break at the end of the year.
On January 4, SBS confirmed “Inkigayo” would not air that day. In its place, SBS scheduled a rerun of “Taxi Driver 3” during “Inkigayo’s” usual time slot at 3:20 p.m. KST, extending the gap in new live music performances on one of the country’s longest-running music chart programs.
What an extended hiatus means for weekly music TV as a business
Weekly music shows are recurring, schedule-dependent platforms that sit at the intersection of broadcast programming, live performance production, and the release calendars of labels and artist management companies. When a broadcast is preempted or paused, the impact extends beyond a single hour of television: the week’s promotional planning, stage production allocations, and the network’s inventory of live entertainment programming all shift accordingly.
For the domestic music industry, a Sunday cancellation at short notice can mean lost on-air stages for new releases, reduced opportunities for trophy wins that drive fan engagement, and a reshuffling of promotional windows across competing music shows. Agencies typically coordinate comebacks around these fixed broadcast slots, so a multi-week hiatus can compress exposure into fewer programs and intensify competition for the remaining air time.
For broadcasters, substituting scripted or library programming-such as a rerun-can also function as a scheduling and cost-control mechanism during periods when regular studio production is reduced or when network priorities temporarily favor other tentpole content. SBS did not provide a reason for extending the “Inkigayo” hiatus in its January 4 notice, but the decision formally removes one more weekend slot from the program’s regular run and underscores how quickly live formats can be displaced by drama franchises already cleared for rebroadcast.
Within South Korea’s regulated terrestrial broadcasting landscape, SBS, as a nationwide free-to-air network, operates under the oversight of the Korea Communications Commission, whose Broadcasting Act framework sets out obligations around public-interest programming, advertising, and fair access for cultural content. While individual scheduling decisions such as an “Inkigayo” hiatus remain at the broadcaster’s discretion, they take place within this broader regulatory environment that shapes how much local music and culture reaches free-to-air audiences.
Distribution note for international viewers
SBS indicated that full episodes of “Inkigayo” are available with English subtitles on Viki, a common model for Korean entertainment exports where platform licensing and subtitling widen audience reach beyond domestic linear broadcast. For international fans, this means the hiatus affects the cadence of new performances and chart announcements rather than access to the program’s existing catalog, which remains available on demand through the platform.
The handling of the January 4 schedule-substituting a rerun of “Taxi Driver 3” for new “Inkigayo” content-also illustrates how Korean broadcasters increasingly manage music and drama franchises as part of a single cross-border asset portfolio, with drama intellectual property leveraged in timeslots traditionally associated with live music formats.
SBS’s published schedule for January 4 replaced “Inkigayo” with a rerun of “Taxi Driver 3” airing at 3:20 p.m. KST, in line with changes announced in its weekend programming grid.