MMA2026 Adds Global Top 10 Award Based on Korea, China and Japan Data

The 2026 Melon Music Awards will introduce a new Global Top 10 prize designed to reflect K-pop activity across South Korea, China and Japan. The category links the annual ceremony to the Global K Chart, expanding the data used to recognize artists beyond Melon’s domestic audience.

Kakao Entertainment announced the addition on August 13. The award will select 10 winners from a field of 30 nominees, giving the ceremony a new main-prize category alongside its existing Top 10 honor.

How the Global Top 10 will be decided

The final result will combine three components. Accumulated Global K Chart scores will carry the largest weight at 60 percent, while professional judging and fan voting will each account for 20 percent. This structure places measured music-platform activity at the center of the result while retaining separate roles for evaluation and direct audience participation.

The Global K Chart launched in June through cooperation among Melon, China’s Tencent Music and Japan’s Line Music. It combines K-pop usage across the three companies’ music platforms to rank artist popularity, providing the new MMA category with a multi-market data source.

The accumulated score is important because it gives the prize a longer view than a single voting period. At the same time, the judging and voting components can influence the outcome around a chart-based foundation. The award therefore measures several forms of recognition rather than relying on one signal alone.

Detailed rules for the complete MMA2026 category lineup have not yet been released. Melon plans to provide further information through the official MMA2026 page, including the broader awards structure and other practical details.

Fans will vote on two platforms

Fan voting will be divided by audience location. Domestic voting will take place through Melon, while international participation will be handled through the fan platform Berriz. The arrangement creates separate access points for listeners in Korea and fans abroad while feeding both groups into the same 20 percent voting share.

The 30 nominees have not yet been named in the announcement. Because 10 artists will ultimately receive the honor, the category follows the multiple-winner format already associated with MMA’s Top 10 award rather than operating as a single grand-prize contest.

Kakao Entertainment described Global Top 10 as equivalent to the existing Top 10 in status. That designation makes it a main award, giving the category more significance than a supplementary popularity poll and placing its winners among the ceremony’s central honorees.

A broader view of K-pop popularity

The new prize changes which listening markets can directly shape a major MMA result. Melon data remains part of the system, but activity from Tencent Music and Line Music platforms also contributes through the Global K Chart. In practical terms, that means engagement in China and Japan can affect the accumulated score used for nominee evaluation.

The 60-20-20 formula also makes the distinction between data and voting clear. Fan ballots matter, but they do not replace listening activity or the judging component. An artist’s position will depend most heavily on sustained chart performance across the participating platforms.

For global fans, Berriz voting adds a direct participation route separate from the underlying usage data. The combination acknowledges that streaming behavior and an intentional award vote represent different kinds of support, even when both come from the same international audience.

MMA2026 is scheduled for November 14 and 15 at Gocheok Sky Dome in Seoul. The two-day event will reveal how the new category fits into the full ceremony once Melon publishes the remaining award information, nominee list and voting schedule.

The Global Top 10 announcement establishes the framework in advance: 30 nominees, 10 winners, a majority share for cross-market chart data and dedicated voting routes for domestic and overseas fans. It gives MMA2026 a formal mechanism for recognizing K-pop popularity across three of Asia’s largest music markets.