"This is just the beginning of the 'MAMA'...� It's a highly successful business model." The "2010 Mnet Asian Music Awards" was finally held on November 28th in Macau. The awards show was quite the noisy one, as even before it was held, it was embroiled in several different controversies against public broadcast programs and entertainment agencies. Even after its broadcast, accusations of 'sharing awards with everyone' were unending. Regarding all of this, Mnet Media's CEO, Park Kwang Won (43), met with reporters two days after the MAMA came to close in order to discuss the ceremony's outcome and future aspects to work on. ? The 2010 MAMA is the first Korean music ceremony held overseas. What do you feel that it lacked? "Over 1,000 came together to work on the MAMA, including 36 different awards participants, music industry representatives, and international reporters. The performance hall was extraordinary, but seeing as it was broadcast overseas, there were still some aspects lacking. At one point, we began worrying because the audience seats weren't full yet, but after the first part of the show ended, seats began filling up and cameras began rolling smoother." ? The ceremony did not show footage of the winners that were not present. "We felt embarrassed that there were holes in our ceremony when hundreds of thousands of Asians were watching. Korean singers are widely loved all across Asia, and it was difficult for us to have to explain and excuse ourselves as to why a portion of them were not in attendance. Of course, we will be continuing attendance discussions back in Korea. We will be working hard until the artists themselves dream of attending the MAMA." ? The purpose of this year's MAMA was to become the representative awards show of the Asian music market. Do you feel that you have achieved this goal? "I discussed a lot of great things at the after party with many different industry representatives. We decided to release the collaboration performance of Gummy and Zhang Jie into a digital single. I also heard a lot of good advice from a representative of the US's Grammys. Different representatives of Korea, China, Japan and America coming together and discussing about music made not only the ceremony, but the after party that much more meaningful as well." ? There are a lot of criticisms asking if it was truly necessary to have held it overseas. What does Mnet Media think of the Asian music market? "In order to advance Asian culture, we believe that we can promote cultural competitiveness by having artists physically watch different performances and collaborating with each other. Holding it overseas was indeed a necessity for this. This is not a question of 'whether this is necessary to us,' but rather a problem of 'who will start it first and take the lead.' We're thinking about the big picture, not the profit. This is Mnet's goal. If it will help the music industry, we're willing to try new things. There were a lot of aspects lacking this year, but we're going to keep pushing forward for that bigger picture." ? Will you be able to recover what you lacked this year, next year? "First and foremost, we must overcome the shortsighted views regarding artists actually attending our ceremony. There are some criticisms stating that Koreans swept the awards, so we will be attempting to bring in a variety of Asian votes through the MAMA homepage. Our goal of having Mnet represent the Asian music market will never change." Source: CBS News via Nate