Lee Je Hoon wins convincingly but SBS awards ceremony causes controversy

On the evening of December 31st, the SBS Drama Awards 2025 ceremony took place in Seoul, hosted by MC Shin Dong Yup and actors Chae Won Bin and Heo Nam Jun.

That day, before announcing the Daesang (large prize), Shin Dong Yup joked: "Daesang only has 1 person out of 5. Previously, I gave Daesang to 2 people and was criticized a lot.

As predicted, this year's Daesang Cup of SBS station belonged to actor Lee Je Hoon of "Taxi Driver 3" - the work that won the TV Drama of the Year award.

The Daesang award given to Lee Je Hoon is considered worthy, but many people think that SBS's award arrangement makes the drama disappear.

When the Best Actor award was awarded, names once considered Daesang candidates such as Go Hyun Jung, Park Hyung Sik and Han Ji Min were eliminated from the race. Meanwhile, Yoon Kye Sang was honored right before Daesang through the Directors' Award, so at this time Lee Je Hoon winning Daesang was almost confirmed.

This year's SBS Drama Awards ceremony was also assessed as "degraded", "discredited" due to the rampant awarding of prizes in various categories, with the number of award recipients reaching 40 people.

Korean media described the SBS 2025 awards ceremony as a "co-award overdose". In the categories of Best Actor/Actress, Best Actor/Actress and Best Supporting Actor/Actress, the organizers divided it into actions, emotions, romantic comedy and humanities/fantasy.

This led to the fact that each award had up to 8 winners. Even in the category of Best Actor - Humanitarian/SF film, there was a case of 2 co-winners.

Although SBS has long maintained the awarding method for each film genre for both the highest and best category, the fact that 9 people receive one award is still unprecedented.

This year's Newcomer acting award was given to 8 people (4 men, 4 women). The award ceremony in this category encountered problems, because at the same time reading the names of 4 winners, the actors thought it was a nomination list, so they did not step onto the stage.

MC Shin Dong Yup had to urge the artists to come up to receive the award. As for the announcement of the new female soldier, he also had to re-emphasize that this is "announcement of the winner".

In 2025, SBS launched 9 TV series, so dividing the award categories and awarding prizes to many people has made the awards ceremony almost uncompetitive.

In fact, the categories that really have competitive nominations only include Best Couple, Best Performance and Strong Impression Character.

Ahn Eun Jin and Jang Ki Yong of the movie "Explosion Kiss" won the Best Couple award. The two actors had a "kiss" on stage, causing a social media storm.

However, it cannot be denied that 2025 is still a successful year for SBS. This television station has recorded 6 consecutive years leading ratings among audiences aged 20-49, and 5 works have entered the Top 10 ratings for mini-series. This is a superior achievement compared to other terrestrial television stations in Korea.