The YouTube channel KBS World TV provides a 24/7 live broadcast of K-pop performances.
Title: "Vibing with K-POP"
Description: "For K-Pop fans around the world, you can enjoy 'Music Bank' and other KBS music programs during 24 hours."
The live broadcasts various performances of Music Bank, including special stages, and yearly festivals. The live is continuous with each performance being played one after another without a break. Performances vary across years with many artists including soloists and groups.
The livestream is very suitable for platform like TV.
- The live offers a seamless watching experience.
- You don't need to decide what to watch. In TV, where navigation isn't best, you just want to tune in.
- In fact, YouTube has the new "Station" feature which is optimized for TV. It runs a YouTube playlist continuously as a livestream.
- The live contains random performances. This is good if you want to explore unfamiliar songs.
- The live brings surprise. You don't know what shows up next, whether it will be your favourite group or a group you despise. This gives a feeling of curiosity and anticipation.
- Seeing your favourite group in your custom playlist is predictable, but seeing them in a random live, in the sea of other groups gives different feelings.
After watching the live for a while, I noticed unfairness on the livestream playlist. I realized that my favourite group rarely shows π. Sometimes, I watch the live for sake of curiosity to see what shows up next.
Whenever my favourite group pops up, I feel happy instantly. I began wondering if there is some sort of pattern or algorithm on the live playlist. Maybe if I can uncover the pattern behind it, I could purposedly surprise myself by tuning in at specific time just to see my favourite group accidentally.
The live shows a full-length video of performance without any trim. For a Music Bank stage, this includes the group's member introduction if they were on a comeback, any special introduction made during the stage, and ending fairy at the end of the performance.
In rare case, the broadcast's introduction video, ending credits are even shown.
Video A 3:34
Video B 3:12
Video C 2:49
---3:34-------3:12-----2:49----
Video A Video B Video C
No cut or skip is done to any of the videos. Though, in a very rare case, after the stage is completed, we can see a very short frame of Music Bank's winner announcement being cut suddenly. Allegedly, the performance video was taken directly from the Music Bank's live broadcast, and the cut wasn't perfect.
The live is broadcasted 24/7, though it is typically ended and then restarted after a few hours every month.
The live is a playlist which contains Music Bank performance videos and other KBS shows that is uploaded to the KBS World TV YouTube channel. Any groups or soloists and special stages may be shown in the live, including the same song or performance on different stage (i.e., aired on separate week).
Group A, performance A, 2:49 (aired on 7 June 2024)
Group A, performance A, 3:07 (aired on 14 June 2024)
Group A, performance A, 3:01 (aired on 21 June 2024)
Although showing the same song/performance, any of them may show up in the live together
The majority of the contents are Music Bank's performance. Others are typically yearly festival events such as KBS Song Festival and Asia Song Festival. Special stage like BTS holding a concert in a school shows up regularly (no source on which video is that).
The content vary across years, with the oldest being in 2013 (BTS's 'No More Dream') up to the latest performance which may airs last week.
Music Bank (and K-pop weekly music show performances in general) has similar patterns. These patterns are helpful to uncover useful information about a Music Bank's performance.
See logo.
The easiest way to roughly estimate what year was a Music Bank's performance was aired is by looking at the logo and banner.
(exact dates aren't researched yet)
- 2013-2015 stages has a hard-textured, purple logo.
- 2015-2018 stages has a hard-textured, yellow/orange logo.
- 2018-2019 stages uses the same logo but added a banner that shows the song's title and the artist's name.
- 2019-2019 stages uses a new minimalist purple logo with banner. The banner shows both song's title and the artist's name in the same line. The font used here is not in a bold style. At the start, you will see a dark-colored box temporarily shown in the bottom right showing the both song's title and the artist's name.
- 2019-2020 stages has similar style as 4, but the dark box is changed into a capsule-shaped intro which is placed in the middle. The capsule shows as white-colored with the "Melon" text, then transition into showing the song's title and the artist's name. The font also becomes bold in this era.
- 2020-2023 stages has similar style as 5, but the capsule intro becomes green. It still shows the "Melon" text with green background, then transition into showing the song's title and artist's name with a black background.
- 2023-2026 stages uses a new minimalist yellow/orange logo.
- ~Jan 2026-10 April 2026 stages Melon capsule intro get changed completely into a trapezoid shape banner with colored same as the logo.
- 17 April 2026-22 May 2026 stages uses a new minimalist blue/purple logo. The trapezoid banner is also colored same as the banner.
- 29 June 2026-now stages uses the same logo as previous, but the banner color is made into fully purple.
This mean if you see a performance with a blue/purple logo and banner, then that performance must have aired somewhere between 17 April 2026-22 May 2026.
The 2019-2023 version of logo and banner has odd pattern on showing song's title and artist's name.
There are few cases:
- Both song's title and artist's name are shown.
- The song's title aren't shown, just the artist's name.
- Artist's name are only shown in English (e.g., just 'Kep1er').
- Artist's name are only shown in Korean (e.g., just 'κ²νλ¬').
- Artist's name are shown in both versions (e.g., 'Kep1er (κ²νλ¬)').
- This probably depends on each artist on which version they want to show.
The logo in 2023 and afterward always shows both song's title and artist's name.
Artists that are in a comeback typically goes to music show for 1-3 weeks in a row. Newer artists typically promotes longer such as 3 weeks, while older ones promotes shorter such as 1-2 weeks. In some case, usually when an artist has a pre-release, the pre-release song is only promoted for a week. On the real album release comeback, they would promote again on music shows, which may results in a total of 4 weeks during the same era.
On each stage, the artists are obviously styled differently. The pattern is that the first week of the comeback is always styled to fit the title track's concept. Typically, the costumes are the same costumes as they use in their official track's music video or performance video.
Not just the styling, the stage during the first week usually has beautiful props, while the second and the latter typically has less or not at all (just them performing with screen in the background).
Group A, song A, styling A
...
Group A, song A, styling B
...
Group A, song A, styling C
The same song is played 3 times, but each of them has different styling. Then logically, there are 3 different Music Bank's performance of that artist in the live playlist.
(In rare scenario, an artist may perform twice with a different song in the same week).
When an artist is in a comeback, the typical patterns are:
- Before they perform, an introduction video is played. The minimal introduction is the song's title. For a group, it usually shows each of the member's name and concept photos or videos. Usually a sound, which is their comeback's song is played on the background. In some cases, the artist may show a special introduction before performing (commonly, this is a highlight of each member's face).
- This introduction is only played during the first week. No further introduction will be shown in the second or latter weeks.
- In rare case, usually when the artist is unpopular, even if it's their first week, no introduction will be shown.
- Introduction video may be shown in the latter weeks if the artist is nominated for the first place for winning the Music Bank's chart. During the introduction video, a special sound will be played on the background and the top right shows '1μ ν보' text (first place candidate).
Group A, song A, has intro
...
Group A, song A, no intro
...
Group A, song A, has nomination
The same song is played 3 times, where the first has intro, the second does not, and the third has nomination. Then logically, there are 3 different Music Bank's performance of that artist in the live playlist.
The chart number becomes effective when it's at least the artist's second week of release. This is because the chart always shows the previous week.
Chart number '1μ ν보' that shows on the introduction video is also shown in the Melon introduction when the stage begins. You see sign like '1μ ν보' or something like '7μ' (7th place).
If you see the chart number having arrow showing increase/decrease, then logically, they were on the chart last week. This makes the current performance at least their third.
Group A, song A, no chart number
Group A, song A, chart number '7μ NEW'
Group A, song A, chart number '9μβ'
The same song is played 3 times, but notice each of them has different chart number. Then logically, there are 3 different Music Bank's performance of that artist in the live playlist.
The reverse engineer is the overall inference from my observation.
The goal is not to crack the playlist's "algorithm", but to summarize the KBS live behaviour.
- We will interchangeably use "artists" as idol group and soloist; most performance are group.
- Performance will be assumed the weekly Music Bank show; festivals shows up lesser than Music Bank performance.
- We will treat the whole live as a "playlist" of random performances.
The observation started from Feb 2026 and isn't formally documented.
- First and foremost, what shows up in the live is mostly performances aired from 2025-2026. This includes any date in that year, from January 2025 up to today 2026. Exception apply and will be explained below.
- The groups that pop up is not based on popularity. A low-tier group can still show up, and a high-tier group doesn't have a guaranteed position in the playlist.
- The available performance in the playlist is not determined by the amount of likes or views. A low views performance can still show up, and a high views performance doesn't have guaranteed position in the playlist.
- The playlist order is not based on the airing date. A performance in March 2025 can jump into today in 2026.
- In the case where a group performs twice in the same day, although aired back-to-back, it will produce 2 separate Music Bank video. Because it's a 2 video, it doesn't guarantee that both will show up in the playlist as a sequence.
- A group that has lost its members still qualify in the playlist.
- It is possible that the same exact performance shows up again later after it just shows up previously/recently, but I never see it back-to-back. This phenomenon is generally rare.
This explains the exception in the first observation point.
In fact, there are many-many cases where performance are from 2024 and before. I would even consider this what makes the majority of the playlist. This is however, not for every artists.
In the normal behavior, what shows up in the playlist should be the newer, 2025-2026 performances. I don't call 2024 and older performances normal because not every artists pop up when performing during that time.
Not even a performance in Nov 2024. If this is really just one-year range, here, in May 2026, I still see stage aired on Feb 2025.
So far, this is my experience watching the live. I could miss a performance in Nov 2024, but the chances are little. After observing for months, watching for hours and hours, I should at least get to see one, but observably I never.
I call artists that has their performance in 2024 and older shows up as privileged.
Though, by being privileged, it doesn't mean that the artist have their entire discography in the playlist. Some songs are just never seen.
Privilege vary. I would consider the degree of privilege from:
- When they have their very old performance shows up.
- When they have more performance in 2024 and before.
During observation, I took advantage of the Music Bank logo.
- Some have their stage even before 2019 (before the purple logo).
- Some just between 2019-2022 (purple logo) and 2023-2024 (the yellow logo).
Privileged artists are mostly K-pop gen 4 artists, some of high-tier gen 5, and just few gen 3. This is probably connected to the fact that gen 4 and 5 artists are active during 2019-2024.
The principle is, the older the stage, the rarer.
I would consider 4 tiers of privilege:
- High privilege (before 2019)
- Stage before the purple logo is very rare. There are only two that I encounter so far.
- BTS; This includes stages in 2013-2019. I think they are the only artist that has their performance from 2013-2017 pop up. BTS has the most special stage and festivals shown.
- Stray Kids; This includes stages in 2018-2019.
- Stage before the purple logo is very rare. There are only two that I encounter so far.
- High-medium privilege (just in 2019-2022 + 2023-2024, high frequency)
- There are many privileged artist in this tier. Below aren't exhaustive lists, not in any order.
- IVE; This includes anywhere from 2021-2024. However, there is an odd case where the "Accendio" performance never shows up. They once performed this in Music Bank, but for some reason it is never seen in the playlist.
- LE SSERAFIM, NMIXX, aespa, TWICE.
- TXT, Enhypen.
- TWS, &TEAM, BOYNEXTDOOR.
- There are many privileged artist in this tier. Below aren't exhaustive lists, not in any order.
- Lower-medium privilege (just in 2019-2022 + 2023-2024, lower frequency)
- They generally show up less in the playlist. Below aren't exhaustive lists, not in any order.
- New Jeans, i-dle, ITZY; Both i-dle and ITZY have stages before the purple logo (especially hot debut stage, which I thought would be important?), but they never shows up in the live. They certainly aren't as privileged as BTS.
- Seventeen, ATEEZ, NCTs.
- ILLIT, Kiss of Life.
- ZEROBASEONE, RIIZE.
- They generally show up less in the playlist. Below aren't exhaustive lists, not in any order.
- Lowest privilege (just in 2019-2022 + 2023-2024, lowest frequency)
- Their performance shows up the least, usually just few songs (1-3) in 2024 and older. They somehow got into the playlist. Below aren't exhaustive lists, not in any order.
- EXO, Red Velvet, STAYC, fromis_9, VIVIZ.
- Their performance shows up the least, usually just few songs (1-3) in 2024 and older. They somehow got into the playlist. Below aren't exhaustive lists, not in any order.
During my observation, BTS is the most frequent boy group and IVE is the most frequent girl group that shows up in the playlist.
This contains artists who definitely has notable performances in 2024 and before. They are mostly less popular groups. Not an exhaustive list.
- Kep1er, FIFTY FIFTY, EVERGLOW (only 2025-2026 stages)
- OH MY GIRL, IZ*ONE (no comeback in 2025+, never even show up as 2024 and before)
Adding more observation point after the privilege system.
- So "privilege" does exist. Some group pops up more than others. Some are really frequent with many repeat of the same song in the playlist, some are just "random" pop up in the playlist.
- Stage before the purple logo (<2019) is almost never seen except for few artists which is included in the high privilege group.
- The playlist seem to be in a loop. I noticed that in day 0 seeing the sequence a-b-c-d-e..., then the same exact sequence in day 2 but 3 hour earlier. This mean that there is a possibility that the playlist is a closed loop which may be around 45 hours or 22.5 hours.
- If the average performance video (intro + performance + ending fairy) is like 03:20 or 200 seconds, then a 22 hours playlist have approximately ~400 songs.
- However, the playlist gets shuffled periodically and possibly modified.
- I do not see the same sequence on Feb 2026 in Mar 2026 or April 2026.
- The song I frequently see in Mar 2026 does not show up frequent anymore in June 2026.
- I do not know the exact shuffle schedule, but it could be around 2-3 weeks.
- New songs aired in the recent week gets added to the playlist regularly.
- It doesn't need a long time to enter.
- No known exception on who will be added into the playlist, whether everybody will make it.
- Ending the live does not change anything. When the live ends after 1 month, the YouTube livestream is simply refreshed without any side effect. When the live gets ended, the video is deleted (no replay is uploaded).
The live does not allow playback. As far as I know, there is no way to rewind the playback.
However, you can actually see what is being played within the last 12 hours from YouTube's preview.
- Using YouTube on desktop, hover over the video and drag the red slider.
- However, this is not a true last 12 hours. If you notice, the playback never progresses. Seeing the last -4 hours now and tomorrow results in the same preview.
- This is probably the last 12 hours on the first time when live is started. Since the live does not allow playback, I think YouTube does not update the preview, and only keep the very first 12 hours.
I do not necessarily track special stages and festivals. What I noticed is that they behave just like Music Bank shows. There is no noticeable exception for them.
So far, I think the playlist isn't absurd and is very normal (though very biased).
From my observations, I concluded that:
- The playlist is manually curated by a human.
- The privilege system is a good indicator, a true random playlist would be more fair.
- The curation does not consider the amount of views, likes, or popularity. The curator simply choose what might be the best for the livestream's audience.
- A "legendary" artist such as TWICE is not in the high privilege tier.
- Some artists never shows up at all or not in any privilege tier despite being popular.
- The playlist is not an aggregation of existing playlists.
- It is also not publicly available anywhere.
- The playlist could be an internal playlist (not YouTube's playlist) that they use for the live broadcast only.
- The odd case of Accendio of IVE being the only one left out. I never see any artist have their whole discography to show in the live. The closest is probably IVE without Accendio. If the curator is solely aggregating existing playlists, Accendio would have show up. Because the curation is manual, maybe, the curator forgot to add this specific song(?)
- The playlist may contain exactly duplicate performance.
- By duplicate performance, I mean the exact same video.
- This explains why some songs are more frequent, and that they can show up again not long after it just shows recently.
- The playlist is not a continuous, non-ending loops, but a closed loop with a fixed length long enough.
- Taken directly from the 45 hours observation.
- The playlist may have a limit and can be altered.
- The limit itself is already implied in the previous point.
- New songs gets added regularly. Logically, each song will also show up less frequently.
- Some songs may be removed. This explains why I never see certain stage anymore. The reason why songs are removed may be because they have a limit.
- The playlist is shuffled periodically.
- Taken directly from the observation.
They aren't yet answered due to the lack of observation.
- Do old songs get added?
- New songs get added, but do old songs also get added?
- Is there a requirement to receive privileges?
- Or is this purely the curator's decision without any specific explanation?
- Has disbanded groups ever show up in the playlist?
- I mean a disbanded group being included in one of the privilege tiers. E.g., disbanded in 2023 but 2022 stages show up.
- GFRIEND made a comeback in 2025 and this stage show up sometimes, but they are not really "disbanded".
- What's the exact length of the playlist, the amount of video, and how much it changes on each cycle?
- The known length right now is 45 hours or 22.5 hours.
- Would be interesting to have a "spreadsheet" containing the list of performances that pop up.
- I do not write my observation and do not use bot to monitor the live.
- Could the live have some sort of weight system?
- Rather than looping over a playlist, maybe they assign probability to certain groups.
- Although, this feels unnecessary complex than useful.
- Let's say now in 2026, the live show performance from 2025 to 2026. I believe that the livestream has been active for a few years. If you watch the live in 2025, does it show 2024-2025 performances? In 2024, does it show 2023-2024? Would there be more older performances before 2022? Has the set of privileged artists changed since then?
- This would answer a lot of things. The current notes rely on the latest observation in 2026. Someone who watched the live before 2026 can basically give us an older version of the observation.
- The set of privileged artists certainly changes, it's not likely that a very new gen 5 groups gets privileged (well, they don't even have many songs); and if it's just gen 4 groups that only have the privilege, the live playlist would be empty. This means there must be old performances inserted in and possibly more gen 3 privileged groups.
- For example, this currently offline livestream featuring different thumbnail of the new livestream was active 2 years ago. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btxWKdCx2w0
There are other K-pop 24/7 livestream providers such as...
By the YouTube channel KBS WORLD Latino.
- Similar to KBS livestream, but I observed and concluded that its model is much simpler than the KBS WORLD's.
- The playlist is a fixed cycle less than 24 hours, more specifically around 23 hours. I see the same exact sequence almost everyday, but it played earlier.
- The playlist contains a very predictable sequences.
- A sequence is defined as a series of performance done by single artist from an older era to a newer era, in the airing date order.
- The newer era is generally limited to 2024 or 2025.
- Majority of the discography is played.
- An artist with long discography will have some songs being dropped out. Some are also limited (i.e., suddenly cut and other sequences are played).
- Between sequences, sometimes there is a transition part, usually done by random artists which is not another sequence.
- Known sequences, not an exhaustive list:
- New Jeans from 2022 to latest 2024.
- aespa from 2020 to 2024.
- ITZY from 2019 to (???).
- IVE from 2021 to 2025.
- VIVIZ from 2022 to 2025.
- i-dle from 2018 to 2024.
- Stray Kids from 2018-2021. (special notice included in the top right)
- Stray Kids from 2022(?)-2024.
- Seventeen from (???) to (???).
- Enhypen from 2020 to (???).
- IU in a special KBS program from (???) to (???).
- It's unknown whether the playlist is ever shuffled or altered.
- If the playlist is exactly 23 hours, it means: what is played today in 7 PM will be played again tomorrow in 6 PM. Overtime, this accumulates and what is played in the night may advance to the morning.
- The uncertainty:
- There could be duplicate sequences in the playlist.
- A duplicate sequence make it confusing because you don't know whether the current sequence is something that happened earlier before but now shuffled so it happens now, or if it's a separate, duplicated sequence.
- I have never tuned on this livestream the whole days, so I don't know if the order is always same everyday.
by the YouTube channel ALL THE K-POP.
- The model is extremely simple.
- It's a fixed loop of approximately 3 hr 48 min.
- The exact playlist order is not publicly available, but the artists that shows up in the live is literally displayed in the description.
- For example, I made a script to calculate the next occurrence of Kep1er's performance.
- https://gist.github.com/glennhenry/7dde3d5dc3d821a6b3b64cc17351b71a
- I have proven the correctness of my model several times.
- Though, the script calculation somehow gets inaccurate. After 2 weeks, it predicated late by a few minutes.
- I already recorded the accurate playlist length. Any time drift should only at maximum 3 seconds. However, even a 1 second drift can grow up to minutes in weeks.
- It could also be livestreaming issue, maybe their live suddenly stopped working and causes delay?
by the YouTube channel THE K-POP.
- Probably a loop as well, but under 24 hours. I see the same sequence sometimes (low confidence).
- Sometimes, the same group is played in a row.
- Often, the same song is replayed after a while, in less than an hour.
- Very often, it's just boy group all alone or girl group.
What's interesting is that they roughly revealed the livestream playlist schedule in: https://twitter.com/THEKPOP/status/1244420318459916288. Though, this is for the older livestream in 2020.
- The schedule appears to divide the livestream playlist into days.
- A day is divided into multiple sections to which a certain playlist is assigned to.
- The playlist, for example, includes "THE SHOW BEST", "Boy group ZIP", "Girl group Zip", "2018 TOP SONGS", "2019 TOP SONGS", etc.
- Each day contains a unique set of sections. In other word, no section can appear multiple times in the same day.
- A section can appear multiple times across the week. In other word, you can see section A in Monday and see it again in Friday, though at different time.
The existence of such schedule reveals something: a livestream broadcasting endless music is probably not random, but manually curated. It resembles a radio broadcasting system. The curation itself may depend on each provider. Some may aggregate different playlists, other may manually pick a popular group or song.
I just checked out the real IVE Accendio Music Bank performance video.
So actually they use the same intro. The exact same members introduction is played on 240510 Heya performance and 240517 Accendio performance. There is a one difference, at the end of the member intro, the Heya performance writes the title "Heya", while Accendio's writes "IVE" text instead. What plays on the live is only the 240510 performance, while the 240517 is missing (or i just never see it?)
Now watching the live feels like a rare hunting. (Is Accendio really not here? Or I haven't watched long enough? Will I ever be able to see Accendio in the live?)