Second-Round Voting Opens For The “Korea Drama Awards” Popularity Award

The “16th Korea Drama Awards” will decide the final winners who will seize the Popularity Award trophies.

The Korea Drama Festival Organizing Committee, the host of the “2025 Korea Drama Festival” (2025 KOREA DRAMA FESTIVAL, hereafter referred to as “KDF”), announced that starting from noon on the 28th, the second round of voting for the Popularity Award of the 16th Korea Drama Awards will be conducted via the participatory fandom app “Celeb Champ” and the K-pop fandom platform “My1Pick.”

Second-Round Popularity Award Voting

The second-round voting for the Popularity Award is conducted for six categories:
“Hot Star (Male/Female),” “Global Star Award,” “Popular Couple Award,” “Multitainer Award,” and “BEST OST Award.”

The winners are selected based on original data provided by FlexOn.
This second-round voting proceeds with the top 10 nominees chosen from the first-round voting for each category.

Voting Schedule

Hot Star (Male/Female): Ends September 17, 11:59 p.m.

Global Star Award & Popular Couple Award: End September 19, 11:59 p.m.

BEST OST Award & Multitainer Award: End September 22, 11:59 p.m.

The first-round voting for the Popularity Award was conducted from noon on August 4 until 11:59 p.m. on August 25 via Celeb Champ and My1Pick,
and 10 nominees per category were selected to advance to the second round.

Nominees by Category

Hot Star Award

Male: Byun WooSeok, Lee JunHyuk, Hwang InYeop, Lee JunYoung, Chu YoungWoo, etc.

Female: Kim HyeYoon, Jung SooBin, Jo BoAh, Jo YiHyun, Park BoYoung, etc.

Global Star Award

Nominees include Byun WooSeok, Park BoGum, Lee HyeRi, Kim HyeYoon, Lee JaeWook, and Kim JiWon, all of whom are showing significant buzz both domestically and internationally.

Popular Couple Award

Nominees include a total of 10 couples:

Lee HyeRi & Jung SuBin (“Friendly Rivalry”)

Choo YoungWoo & Cho YiHyun (“Head Over Heels”)

Park JinYoung & Park BoYoung (“Our Unwritten Seoul”)

Lee JunHyuk & Han JiMin (“Love Scout”)

Yoo YeonSeok & Chae SooBin (“When the Phone Rings”)

…and others.

BEST OST Award

Songs that increased the immersion of dramas have advanced to the second round of voting:

Son TaeJin — “I Will Embrace You”

YoungTak — “Unknown Life”

Lim YoungWoong — “More Beautiful Than Heaven”

TOMORROW X TOGETHER (TXT) — “When That Day Comes”

Multitainer Award

Nominees include artists active across multiple fields, showing fierce competition:
Park JaeChan, JiSoo, Park JiHoon, Yoon SanHa, Lee JunYoung, Lee HyeRi, and others.

Nominees advancing to the second-round vote for each category can be checked on Celeb Champ and My1Pick.

Main Award Voting

In addition to the Popularity Awards, six main award categories are also decided via Celeb Champ and My1Pick:

Rookie Award (Male/Female)

Best Picture

Excellence Award (Male/Female)

Top Excellence Award (Male/Female)

Final winners are determined based on:

10% fan votes (via Celeb Champ & My1Pick)

90% jury & organizing committee evaluations

Ceremony Details

The 16th Korea Drama Awards will honor 92 drama works, actors, and production staff broadcast over the past year across:

The three major terrestrial broadcasters

Cable channels

General programming channels

OTT platforms

The awards ceremony will be held on October 11 at 5 p.m. at the Gyeongsangnam-do Culture & Arts Center.

About Celeb Champ

Meanwhile, Celeb Champ provides a wide range of services that fandoms can enjoy, centered on celebrities from various genres such as trot singers and actors.

With voting and cheering functions, fans can directly support artists’ activities. Through various events and content, the platform is expanding fandom participation.

Currently, about 300 celebrities are registered, and the app has recorded over 300,000 downloads.