The Melon Music Awards is a major music awards show that is held annually by Kakao Entertainment through its online music store Melon. The event was initially a fan-voted award conducted entirely online from 2005 through 2008, and has been officially held offline in Seoul since 2009.
Melon is a South Korean online music store and music streaming service introduced in November 2004, and developed by SK Telecom. LOEN Entertainment became the company-in-charge of the service in 2009. In 2017, Kakao merged Kakao Music into Melon to have one, unified music streaming service.
The 2020 Melon Music Awards ceremony, organized by Kakao M through its online music store, Melon, took place virtually from December 2 through December 5, 2020 in South Korea, with the main ceremony taking place on December 5 at 19:00 KST. This is the twelfth ceremony in the show's history, and the first to be held online and over a span of four days. It was held without an audience due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Melon Music Award for Album of the Year is an award presented by South Korean entertainment company Kakao M at the annual Melon Music Awards, with its inaugural online ceremony in 2005. Award winners are based on data collected from the Melon music platform and honors artists who have had exceptional performance during the recording year. Since 2009, it has comprised one of the daesang awards given at the event, alongside Song of the Year, Artist of the Year, and later Record of the Year—the latter of which was introduced during the 2018 ceremony.
The Melon Music Award for Song of the Year is one of the awards from the annual Melon Music Awards, an event that uses data from Melon's streaming service to celebrate artists who have had exceptional performance during the year. The Song of the Year category recognizes the top performing single in South Korea based on various metrics such as digital performance, voting, and judge evaluation.
The Melon Music Award for Artist of the Year is an accolade presented by Kakao M at the annual Melon Music Awards. The Artist of the Year award was first given at its inaugural online ceremony in 2005; since 2009, it consists of the most prestigious awards given at the event, alongside Album of the Year and Song of the Year.
The Melon Music Award for Best New Artist is an award presented annually by Kakao M at the annual Melon Music Awards. It was first given at the ceremony's inaugural online ceremony in 2005, and was given in person for the first time starting from the 2009 awards.
The 2022 Melon Music Awards was held on November 26, 2022, at the Gocheok Sky Dome in Seoul, South Korea. Organized by Kakao M through its online music store Melon, the 2022 ceremony was the fourteenth installment of the event and its first fully offline ceremony since 2019. Artists who released music between November 8, 2021, and November 3, 2022, are eligible for the awards.
The 2023 Melon Music Awards was an awards ceremony held on December 2, 2023. It was organized by Melon, and Kakao Entertainment and broadcast through Melon, and Wavve in South Korea, Abema in Japan, and Beyond Live in selected regions. The ceremony was hosted by An Yu-jin, with pre-ceremony red carpet event hosted by Hitomi Honda, Nako Yabuki, and Ha Ji-young.
