Taiwan's New Idol Generation

30-Second Overview: After S.H.E debuted in 2001, Taiwan went nineteen full years without producing a successful idol group. In 2020, producer Chan Jen-Hsiung (詹仁雄) poured NT$130 million into a talent show called DD52 (菱格世代 DD52), hoping to restart Taiwan's idol industry chain with a single program. Over the following six years: DD52, Atom Boyz, Next Girlz, Atom Boyz 2, Cosmic Angels — five shows, four Golden Bell Awards, more than fifty debuted idols, ten or more groups. Yet the champion group's buzz often lagged behind the runner-up's; one year after debut, seven male groups' popularity showed "cliff-edge declines." Debuting is easy; staying relevant is hard — this became the deepest structural problem Taiwan's idol industry has ever faced.

On September 11, 2001, HIM International Music released the three-member girl group S.H.E. Over the next decade, Selina, Hebe, and Ella sold more than 16 million albums, making them one of the most successful girl groups in Mandopop history.¹

Then Taiwan's idol groups just stopped.

It wasn't for lack of trying. Fahrenheit, Lollipop, Bangbangdang — all these names flickered briefly but none sustained the kind of longevity S.H.E achieved. From 2001 to 2020, nineteen full years, Taiwan's music scene failed to produce a single idol group comparable to S.H.E.² During that time, South Korea turned K-pop into a global cultural export machine, Japan's AKB48 system expanded across all of Asia, and China's talent shows batch-produced limited-run groups. And Taiwan — the island that had once defined Mandopop — left the idol group category essentially blank.

In 2020, someone decided to wait no longer.

The NT$130 Million Bet

On June 12, 2020, 菱格世代 DD52 (Lingge Shidai DD52) launched simultaneously on YouTube and ETtoday.²

DD52's scale far exceeded any comparable talent show of its era. Producer Chan Jen-Hsiung — one of Taiwan's most accomplished variety-show producers — partnered with Liang Tinghao and committed NT$130 million in production budget. That figure was five to six times what comparable Taiwanese shows cost at the time. Original music composition alone cost NT$18 million, and the hardware spec was 2.5 times that of Star Academy (星光大道).²

104 girls, averaging thirteen to twenty-five years old, were divided into four groups: Hurricane (風暴黑桃), Blaze Love (烈焰之心), Pink Fun (粉紅梅花), and White Diamond (雪鑽石).³ Lead mentors were Rainie Yang (楊丞琳) and Pan Weibo. Guest mentors included Chen Li-Nong, Chili Peppers (茄子蛋), Wang Xinling, Jam Hsiao (蕭敬騰), Zhouxingzhe, Wei Ruxuan (魏如萱), 9m88, and Wu Zhuoyuan — seventeen musicians in total.³

Thirteen episodes, two hours each. The championship round was September 4, 2020.

Blaze Love scored 57.9; Hurricane scored 55.4. The gap: 2.5 points.³

Champions Blaze Love debuted under the name G.O.F (Girls On Fire). Runner-up Hurricane's six members were signed by producer Felipe.Z, who established AOA Entertainment Lab, and debuted as HUR.⁴ Pink Fun debuted simultaneously under the name PINK FUN.³

DD52 won the 56th Golden Bell Award for Best Variety Program.³

But the real story began after the championship round ended.

📝 Curator's Note
Chan Jen-Hsiung once told a reporter: "Many parents support their daughters in chasing dreams, the capacity is there, and girl groups are easier to manage than boy groups." That sounds pragmatic — but it also hints at a deep problem in Taiwan's idol industry: idol groups here tend to be the producer's creation, not the members' own choice.

When the Champion's Buzz Starts to Disappear

After debuting, G.O.F's buzz rapidly declined. PINK FUN faced a member-withdrawal controversy. Of the three debut groups, it was the last to debut — runner-up HUR — that lasted the longest.⁵

Social media buzz comparisons were brutal: G.O.F at 517 posts, PINK FUN at 621, HUR at 604.⁵ The champion had the lowest numbers. And six years later, in 2026, only HUR (now called HUR+) among the three is still releasing albums, still performing concerts, and still crowdfunding to perform in South Korea.⁴

This reversal wasn't coincidence. HUR+'s producer Felipe.Z took an entirely different path from the champion group: he didn't copy Korea.

✦ "Actually, the more different we are, the better. If we use the same formula and tricks as Korea, how could Taiwan ever win against them?"⁴

But DD52's biggest legacy exceeded any of the debuted groups: it proved that Taiwan had 104 girls willing to stand on an idol talent-show stage, audiences willing to watch, mentors willing to teach, and a Golden Bell Award willing to be given. The supply side was always sufficient; the problem lay in everything downstream.

Eighty Boys, Seven Groups

On April 17, 2022, the male version of DD52 arrived. 原子少年 ATOM BOYZ premiered on TVBS.⁶

Eighty boys were divided into eight planets, ten per group. The mentor lineup switched to Chen Jiahu (Ella), Zhoutan Hao, Xie Kunda, and Tian Yide.⁶ The scale was similar to DD52, but with one key difference: the number of debut groups more than doubled.

Champion Uranus became U:NUS; runner-up Earth became Ozone. By November 2023, thirty-four contestants had debuted across seven groups.⁶

Seven.

📝 Curator's Note
Seven groups sounds like a gentle approach that gives "more people a chance." In practice it was a fatal strategic decision. Taiwan's idol market audience pool was never large; seven groups dividing it meant each got only one-seventh of the available attention.

The News Lens analyzed Atom Boyz one year after debut, and the conclusion was direct: popularity showed "cliff-edge declines."⁷

✦ "Groups with lower popularity have a very hard time being seen." "Most of the music circulates only among fans and struggles to break through."⁷

Within one year, each of the seven groups had released at most one album, six songs, and two concerts. No promotional stages, no overseas expansion plans, management companies choosing to "basically retain only the Taiwan market."⁷ And the Taiwan market's scale cannot sustain seven male groups.

But Atom Boyz also had bright spots. Ozone became the first new-generation male group to headline a solo show at the Little Taipei Arena (小巨蛋), drawing ten thousand fans. U:NUS focused on songwriting and was called by fans "Taiwan's first all-songwriter new-breed male group."⁶ These individual cases proved that Taiwan idols have potential — it's the industry structure that can't keep up.

Atom Boyz won the 58th Golden Bell Award for Best Director.⁶

Already-Debuted Artists Battle Again

In July 2023, the talent show format evolved further. 未來少女 NEXT GIRLZ didn't select civilians — it selected already-debuted girl groups.⁸

Six groups competed: Sunshine Orange (日光之橙), Mint Crystal (薄荷水晶), Black Obsidian Sprite (黑曜精靈), Purple Moonlight (紫月光), Scarlet Enchantment (緋紅魅影, HUR+'s nine-member limited lineup), and Fantasy Blue Bear (幻藍小熊), plus a hidden group Ghost Crystal (幽靈水晶) unlocked by audience vote.⁸

Champion Fantasy Blue Bear (GenBlue) won six of nine rounds of competition, took home a million-dollar car prize, and on September 2, 2024 debuted in South Korea with the single "COCOCO" — the first time a Taiwan talent show system successfully exported to the Korean market.⁸

What this show is most worth recording, however, is a conflict that arose during the process. A judge criticized Scarlet Enchantment (HUR+) for performing "too aggressively." Producer Felipe.Z responded on social media:

✦ "Living in the Stone Age?"⁹

That sentence touched on a core tension in Taiwan's idol culture: what do Taiwanese audiences and judges actually expect from idols — sweetness and cuteness, or are they ready for aggressive performance styles? In South Korea, the BLACKPINK-style "girl crush" had long been mainstream; in Taiwan, that aesthetic shift was still happening.

Next Girlz won the 59th Golden Bell Award for Best Variety Program.⁸

The Fourth Time, Still Chan Jen-Hsiung

On August 24, 2024, 原子少年 2 premiered.¹⁰

Fifty-four contestants, six star-planets, TVBS plus LINE TV plus Hami Video. Champion Mini Planet group formed the seven-member F.F.O, whose debut album Future For One debuted at the top of both the Books.com.tw real-time and weekly charts. The popular limited group ARKis debuted the following day. There was also a "Noah's Ark Project" mechanism that assembled another limited group.¹⁰

At this point, Chan Jen-Hsiung's Taiwan idol talent show system had formed a clear pattern:

Four shows, four Golden Bells. Taiwan's idol talent shows are successful at "making the show." The question is: what happens after the show is over?

Atom Boyz 2 won the 60th Golden Bell Award for Best Variety Program.¹⁰

💡 Did You Know
Chan Jen-Hsiung's four idol talent shows (DD52, Atom Boyz, Next Girlz, Atom Boyz 2) won four awards between the 56th and 60th Golden Bell Award ceremonies — on average one per edition. Tiipa Entertainment (a joint venture between Gamania and Chan Jen-Hsiung) became the most consistently winning machine in Golden Bell history for the idol talent show category.

The New Variable: Outside Chan Jen-Hsiung's System

On March 7, 2026, an idol talent show outside Chan's system premiered: 宇宙啦啦隊 Cosmic Angels.¹¹

Self-produced by Videoland Television Network and Titan Star Entertainment, with producer B2 Chen Yanming. From a large-scale open audition, thirty girls were selected, with the goal of forming a nine-member group.¹¹

Two distinctive qualities make this show worth noting.

First, the entry point is cheerleading culture. Taiwan's professional baseball cheerleaders had, after 2023, become an independent cultural phenomenon. Names like Lee Da-hye (李多慧), Byun Ha-yul (邊荷律), and Nam Min-jung (南珉貞) had social media influence that far exceeded the baseball field itself. Cosmic Angels channeled that energy into an idol talent show — a precise cultural grafting.¹¹

Second, the host is Super Junior's Eunhyuk (銀赫). A top Korean idol directly participating in Taiwanese idol talent show production, as a full-time resident host throughout the entire show, goes far beyond the level of a guest mentor making a cameo appearance. Audition finalists traveled to South Korea for professional training.¹¹ This was the first time a Taiwanese talent show brought Korean professional resources in directly, transcending mere format imitation.

Cosmic Angels was still airing in April 2026.¹¹

A Different Experiment: Eight Years of Struggle for an Overseas System in Taiwan

In February 2018, TPE48, the Taiwan branch of AKB48, officially debuted with forty members.¹²

Four months later, the operating company collapsed, employees went three months without pay, and AKS (AKB48's Japanese parent company) terminated the license — forcing the group to rename itself AKB48 Team TP and continue.¹²

This was a completely different idol path from DD52's system. DD52 was "locally grown": starting from a talent show, building an industry chain using Taiwanese audiences, Taiwanese mentors, and Taiwanese capital. TPE48 was "overseas licensing" — transplanting the Japanese theater performance model, handshake culture, and the entire 48-system operational logic.

⚠️ Contested Perspective
Should Taiwan's idol industry "build its own" or "transplant someone else's"? The DD52 system proved Taiwan can produce Golden Bell-winning shows, but debuted groups don't last long. The TPE48 system proved overseas models can sustain long-term operations (the renamed group persisted until its 2026 return to the TPE48 name), but it never broke out of a niche circle. Neither path has truly succeeded — perhaps the answer isn't a binary choice, but finding Taiwan's own third path.

In January 2026, TPE48 announced a return to the original name TPE48, restarting after eight years of struggle.¹² Ma Chia-ling (馬嘉伶) — the first non-Japanese AKB48 full member in history — is the most symbolically significant name in this story.

Taiwan Idols' Real Structural Problems

Six years, five shows, more than fifty debuted idols, ten or more groups. The numbers look lively — but three structural problems remain unsolved.

First: No regular promotional stages.

South Korea has M Countdown, Music Bank, Inkigayo, and Show! Music Core — at least four weekly programs where idol groups perform new songs, accumulate exposure, and compete for first-place rankings.⁷ Taiwan has no such regularly scheduled program. After debuting, idols have almost no fixed stage to stand on beyond variety show appearances and self-produced concerts.

Second: Management companies too small to sustain.

South Korea's top three management companies (HYBE, SM, JYP) each generate annual revenues in the hundreds of billions to trillions of Korean won. Taiwan's idol management companies — whether DD52 system's Tiipa and Yefire, or HUR+'s AOA Entertainment Lab — are on a far smaller scale. Felipe.Z invested NT$50 million in HUR+, but his own words put the actual need at NT$300-400 million.⁴ A tenfold gap.

Third: Debuting is too easy.

DD52 produced three groups; Atom Boyz produced seven; Atom Boyz 2 produced two more plus a limited group. Each talent show kept adding to the supply of debuted idols, but audience attention didn't grow proportionately. When seven male groups simultaneously divide the same market, each gets only one-seventh of the available resources and attention.⁷

📝 Curator's Note
There's an ironic contrast here: Taiwan's ability to make idol talent shows is world-class — four Golden Bell Awards prove it. But the ability to build an idol industry is still at its starting stage. A show is one-time; an industry is ongoing. Taiwan excels at the former and is still learning the latter.

Those Who Survived

But beneath the grand narrative of "easy to debut, hard to sustain," some individual cases are carving out different paths.

HUR+'s producer Felipe.Z used a "nothing like a Korean group" strategy to keep the team alive for six years: three albums, crowdfunded performance trips to South Korea, members spanning Mongolian, British, Indonesian, and Vietnamese heritage — each new member's addition targeting a specific market.⁴

Cheng Li-wun (連穎), HUR+'s lead dancer, branched out solo, releasing her personal EP EZ in 2025 in hip-hop and R&B style. Her fans crowdfunded a birthday tribute stage at Dadaocheng (大稻埕), with simultaneous support advertising across Taiwan, Japan, and Thailand.¹³ K-pop-style fan culture is being localized by Taiwanese idol fan communities.

GenBlue (Fantasy Blue Bear), after winning Next Girlz, actually went to South Korea and debuted in 2024. Ozone became the first new-generation male group to headline a solo show at Little Taipei Arena. F.F.O's debut album received market validation.¹⁰

These individual cases are limited in scale, but each is proof of survival. In a market where idol groups average less than three years of existence, every additional year is a victory.

The Question Taiwan Is Answering

In 2026, Taiwan's idol industry has three tracks running simultaneously: Chan Jen-Hsiung's talent show system (the Atom Boyz series still generating new groups), new attempts outside Chan's system (Cosmic Angels), and the groups that survived from the DD52 era carving out their own paths (HUR+ performing in South Korea, GenBlue debuting in Korea).

Taiwan won't become a second South Korea — market scale won't allow it, industry structure doesn't support it, and the cultural soil is different. But Taiwan is answering a question in its own way: in an era when K-pop rules all of Asia, can an island of 23 million people develop idols that truly belong to itself?

The answer hasn't arrived yet. But those still on the stage — the group where the runner-up outlasted the champion, the individuals who carved out solo paths from a group, the fan communities who crowdfund their own stages — they are writing the answer inch by inch, through every performance, every album, every crowdfunding campaign.

Further Reading

• HUR+ — DD52's runner-up, the only group still releasing albums six years later. "Being different from Korean groups is exactly our chance not to lose to them."
• Cheng Li-wun (連穎) — HUR+'s lead dancer, a case study of a female idol going solo from a group
• Rainie Yang (楊丞琳) — DD52's lead mentor, her own twenty-five-year story of walking out of the idol system and into artistic autonomy
• Jolin Tsai (蔡依林) — Taiwan's "dancing queen," whom Cheng Li-wun has publicly called "my goddess"
• Taiwan Pop Music — how Taiwan secured its central place in the Mandopop universe
• Taiwan Baseball Culture — the matrix of cheerleader culture, which is Cosmic Angels' precise entry point

References