Phantom Singer () is JTBC's music television program which is an audition program aiming to pick a male crossover vocal quartet. The show's season 1 was aired from November 11, 2016, to January 27, 2017, every Friday at 21:00. Season 2 was aired from August 11, 2017, to November 11, 2017, every Friday at 21:00. Season 3 was aired from April 10, 2020, to July 3, 2020, every Friday at 21:00. A special season Phantom Singer All Stars was aired from January 26, 2021, to April 20, 2021. Season 4 is airing from March 10, 2023.
Host
Jun Hyun-moo (Seasons 1–4, All Star special) Kim Hee-chul (Season 1)
Producers
Format
Seasons 1 to 3
Contestants who successfully passed the open audition perform a chosen solo song in front of the panel of six producers and further trimmed down to 32 (or 36 in season 3). They proceed to the "1 v 1 duet" stage where contestants are paired up through a random draw and must sing a duet together while competing for a place in the next stage. The producers individually cast their votes on which contestant to keep in each pair. In each duet, the contestant with the lowest number of collective votes are considered for elimination. The producers have a meeting to decide which of the candidates should be kept in the competition and which ones should be eliminated, only announcing the eliminated candidates later; this practice would be repeated for each round of eliminations.
The remaining contestants proceed to the "duet v duet" stage. They are individually allowed to choose their duet partner and are allowed to mix together in a room for thirty minutes before deciding on their duet partner. Each duet will compete against another duet, chosen through a random draw. The panel of producers will individually score each duet out of 100, with 600 being the highest possible score. The panel decides on the candidates for elimination among the losing duets. After that, in preparation for the trio stage, the winning duets will be allowed to pick their third member among those retained contestants who had been in the losing duets. The "trio v trio" stage is conducted in the same way as the "duet v duet" stage and the top 3 winning trios will be allowed the first pick of their fourth member in preparation for the quartet stage. The trios who rank below the top 3 have to reshuffle their line-ups to form new quartets.
The first round of the quartet stage features the quartets performing their selected song and scored by the panel in the same way as the "duet v duet" and "trio v trio" stages. Only the quartet ranked first is allowed to keep all their members while one member from each of the other quartets is eliminated. The remaining contestants are then randomly grouped into quartets for the next round. Similar to the previous round, only the top ranked quartet keeps all their members while the other quartets lose a member each. The remaining twelve contestants write down the contestants they wished to be in a quartet with and undergo an interview with the panel to make their case. The panel makes the final decision based on the vocal range of each contestant and the members' ability to work together as a team.
During the first round of the final stage, the three finalist quartets perform two songs in front of the panel and a live studio audience, accompanied by a live band and chamber orchestra. Points are awarded based on votes from both the audience and the panel of producers. The very last round of the final stage features a much larger studio audience and is televised live. The quartets perform two songs each. The panel does not evaluate the quartets, who are instead awarded points based on text voting and votes from the live studio audience. The winner is decided based on the cumulative points from both rounds.
The scoring method for the "1 v 1" stage was changed in the third season. In that stage, individual producers score each contestant out of 100, with the highest score being 600. Previously, the individual producers only voted for which contestant to keep and the contestant with the fewest votes was immediately a candidate for elimination.